, Columnists
No Taxpayer Bailout for Puerto Rico's Creditors
The island government's rosy fiscal scenarios threaten its economic future.
Taxpayers shouldn't buy what he's selling.
Photographer: Cindy Ord/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Puerto Rico bonds have been the best-performing fixed income investment thus far in 2018. Following the devastation of last year’s Hurricanes Maria and Irma, and the expected migration to the mainland of more than 10 percent of the island’s population, how can this be?
The answer lies in the tens of billions of emergency reconstruction dollars appropriated by Congress, including $18 billion in housing grants alone, and in the dangerously optimistic forecasts of Puerto Rico’s own government. We are convinced that the emergency funds should be used to rehabilitate the island’s economy, as Congress intended, and not diverted to create a windfall for the island’s creditors.