Puerto Rico Board Rejects Governor's Plan to End Debt Crisis
- Board says projections ‘unrealistic,’ spending not cut enough
- Rossello given until March 11 to submit a revised plan
A U.S. oversight board rejected Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello’s initial plan for pulling the island out of its debt crisis, saying the proposal relies on overly optimistic projections and fails to cut spending deeply enough to erase the government’s chronic budget deficits.
The panel’s comments, made in a letter to the governor Thursday, raise the specter of a clash between the elected leader and the federal appointees who were given vast power over the U.S. territory’s finances after a record-setting series of bond defaults. The blueprint released by Rossello bucked the deep austerity initially suggested by the board, relying instead largely on tax and cost-saving measures that wouldn’t deal as big a blow to the already shrinking economy.