Puerto Rico, The Left’s Sandbox

[Obiwan]

Puerto Rico The Left s Sandbox

Major policies the Left wants are already the rule in Puerto Rico. And that’s why Puerto Rico’s a massive disaster.

If you want an enthusiastic high-five, offer a progressive the following policy package. (You might want to take a shot of Don Q Añejo before reading any further.)

• Raise the minimum wage
• Enact stronger overtime rules
• Instruct all employers to offer paid sick and vacation leave
• Enroll thrice as many children in Head Start
• Increase the generosity of food stamps, disability, and welfare
• Raise the consumer cost of non-renewable energy
• Directly control the growth of health-care prices
• Hire more teachers and shrink class sizes
• Decrease college tuition at state universities
• Use tax policy to attract high-tech industries
• Strengthen unions
• Invest in modern urban transit

Then you can tell them what this might get them, given a few decades to percolate through the system. (And maybe offer them a shot of that Don Q to soften the blow.)

• Higher income inequality than any of the 50 states
• Employees’ share of net national income dropping to one-third from two-thirds
• 27 percent youth unemployment
• About a fifth of workers having virtually no employment protections—even from blatant sexual or racial discrimination
• A debt crisis
• Economic depression

Progressives generally prefer policies that avert extreme market outcomes. They don’t like to see anybody become very rich or very poor. Things that are too successful (like fracking and Airbnb) get slowed down; things that are failing (like wind power and shipbuilders) get propped up.

The most optimistic liberals convince themselves that pushing averageness can benefit economic efficiency. More realistic lefties are willing to give up some growth for greater equality. But no progressive thinks her favored policies will lead to less equality and worse labor conditions.

The case of Puerto Rico is a bracing reminder that a full adult dose of progressivism can do permanent damage to things that liberals care about, too. Most of the progressive policies above are drawn from President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address. These policies are not just artifacts of New Deal paternalism; they’re prime goals of progressives for 2017. And every one of them also reflects a significant policy difference between Puerto Rico and typical mainland policies.

 

[Mr. H.]

Another thread blames Bush and Ernie Banks.

'Sup with that shit?

 

[Obiwan]

Another thread blames Bush and Ernie Banks.

'Sup with that shit?

The Idiot Lib gave me link without reading the article, so I corrected his mistake...

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Wow. That link could not be more wrong. It doesn't address any of the reasons for PR's problems and my bet is the idiot OP has never even been there.

BTW, your hero Trump has contributed to their downfall though not near as much as the US wiping their agriculture and manufacturing.

Instead of constantly whining that everything is the left's fault, educate yourself.

 

[Obiwan]

Puerto Rico wants to be able to declare bankruptcy - Jun. 29 2015

Puerto Rico wants to be able to declare bankruptcy
June 29
NEW YORK


Puerto Rico's governor has a message for Washington D.C: change the law, we want the right to declare bankruptcy.

On the brink of default, Governor Alejandro García Padilla demanded that the U.S. government allow Puerto Rico, a commonwealth, access to chapter 9 bankruptcy. That's what Detroit used when it went belly up. At the moment, only cities, towns and other municipalities are able to declare bankruptcy.

"We cannot allow them to force us to choose between paying for our police, our teachers, our nurses, and paying our debt," Padilla said in a televised announcement Monday night in Spanish. "We have to act now."

Puerto Rico is running out of time. The island owes $73 billion that it can't pay. Its debt is already junk grade and has one of the lowest possible ratings.

"Now is the moment for us to call on Washington for concrete action," Padilla said, referring to the need to lobby Washington for change on Chapter 9.

The governor compared the island's financial situation to Detroit's, but unlike Detroit, Puerto Rico's only option is to settle its debt with its creditors on its own, which would take years.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Who would be stupid enough to compare PR with Detroit?

The US has bankrupted PR so yes, they should be given the same protection as, oh say, Donald Drumpf who, btw, has done his bit to ruin them.

 

[Obiwan]

Who would be stupid enough to compare PR with Detroit?

The US has bankrupted PR so yes, they should be given the same protection as, oh say, Donald Drumpf who, btw, has done his bit to ruin them.

Puerto Rico Government

Puerto Rico is a self-governing commonwealth in association with the United States. The chief of state is the President of the United States of America. The head of government is an elected Governor. There are two legislative chambers: the House of Representatives, 51 seats, and the Senate, 27 seats.

Puerto Rico has authority over its internal affairs. United States controls: interstate trade, foreign relations and commerce, customs administration, control of air, land and sea, immigration and emigration, nationality and citizenship, currency, maritime laws, military service, military bases, army, navy and air force, declaration of war, constitutionality of laws, jurisdictions and legal procedures, treaties, radio and television--communications, agriculture, mining and minerals, highways, postal system; Social Security, and other areas generally controlled by the federal government in the United States. Puerto Rican institutions control internal affairs unless U.S. law is involved, as in matters of public health and pollution. The major differences between Puerto Rico and the 50 states are exemption from some aspects of the Internal Revenue Code, its lack of voting representation in either house of the U.S. Congress (Senate and House of Representatives), the ineligibility of Puerto Ricans residing on the island to vote in presidential elections, and its lack of assignation of some revenues reserved for the states.

 

[Obiwan]

Face it, Luddly, we don't owe them a bailout.....