Poor PR

From the BBC:
"Obama calls on Congress to avoid 'humanitarian crisis'"

The Obama administration is urging Congress to devise a plan for Puerto Rico's massive $72 billion (£47 billion) debt in order to avoid a "humanitarian crisis". The US Treasury Department urged lawmakers on Thursday to make a blueprint that would permit Puerto Rico to restructure its debt. A plan would include more oversight over Puerto Rico's finances. It includes Medicaid expansion and an expansion of low-income tax credits.  "Puerto Rico is out of cash and running out of options," said Antonio Weiss, a Treasury Department official, to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which presides over Puerto Rico. "In the very near future, Puerto Rico will face impossible choices among providing essential services, delivering promised pension benefits and paying its debt." The proposal is unlikely to be approved by the Republican-controlled Congress, which has opposed increased spending. In August the US territory failed to make a debt payment, saying it did not have the funds to pay more than $50m (£32m) due on bonds. It is by far the most indebted territory or state per capita in the United States, and unemployment is at almost 14% - more than double the national average - and over the last decade there has been little or no growth, resulting in the economy teetering on the brink of collapse.

 

 

^ The Federal Government does need to do something to bail-out Puerto Rico from is default. The current economic situation on the US Territory should silence any calls for independence because they have show they can't handle basic things like a budget (much less foreign relations, immigration, a military and all the other issues an independent country has to make.) Any county, town or city that defaults or declares bankruptcy should have their budgets, books and basic services taken over by the US State or US Territory that it resides in. Any US State or US Territory that defaults or declares bankruptcy should have their budgets, books and basic services taken over by the Federal Government. The control should only be returned when the officials have shown they can do complete certain requirements relating to monetary issues. The US should not become like the EU whose member-states simply throw money to bail-out other member countries (Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Ireland, etc) and have no say in how things are handled. I know some are wondering who would bail-out the US Federal Government if their defaulted or declared bankruptcy. Hopefully, that would never happen but if it does then the whole world would collapse. The 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression. that followed hit every corner of the planet and that was 16 years before the United States became a Super Power. ^

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34609583