The bill was bipartisan but was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2016 and has come to be associated with Democrats. One driver of this dynamic was Puerto Ricans’ displeasure with the legislation that created the fiscal control board it became a stand-in for Puerto Ricans’ anger at the rapacious treatment they’ve received. But Puerto Ricans broadly dashed those hopes, voting in sizable numbers for Republicans. As Puerto Ricans fled the island over the past several years, escaping the misery of Hurricane Maria and its economic fallout, Democrats hoped to cash in at the ballot box. The fight also has political implications. The alternative path, beating back the bondholders, could allow Puerto Rico to invest instead in its own future. The end result could be that Puerto Rico’s assets are sold off and the island is turned into a full-blown playground for the mega-rich. Austerity and cuts to social services will be needed to pay Wall Street and could further hamper the economy, driving an exodus from the island and fueling a vicious cycle that would lead in fairly short order to a new bankruptcy. If the board strikes a deal that favors bondholders and leaves the island’s debt load at an unsustainably high level, it could set the commonwealth on a predictable course. This happens while the island is in the middle of a pandemic.” “The current deal provides payments to hedge funds and millionaire bondholders by cutting pensions and forcing Puerto Rico into a long haul of austerity-driven policies that will force even more people to leave the island and will threaten the stability of essential services. “In the next 2 months an unelected fiscal control board will present a restructuring deal worth upwards of 30 billion dollars that will impact the people of Puerto Rico for decades,” López Varona said by text message. The stakes for Puerto Rico’s future will be enormous, said Julio López Varona, co-director of community dignity campaigns at the Center For Popular Democracy, which spearheaded a letter laying out a list of demands for President-elect Joe Biden by more than 30 organizations from Puerto Rico and its diaspora. Of particular concern to critics of a bondholder-friendly deal is Trump’s appointee, Justin Peterson, who is tied to a firm that represented the very same vulture funds that stand to profit off Puerto Rico’s debt. President Donald Trump’s defeat in his reelection campaign and the forthcoming change in administration has triggered a jockeying for power inside the board, with Wall Street creditors targeting key positions - which Republicans recently scrambled to fill with appointees seen as friendly to bondholders. The fate of the island hinges on the terms of a bankruptcy-like deal currently being hashed out by a seven-person, unelected control board and a bankruptcy judge, all of which must be ultimately approved by the legislature and governor of Puerto Rico. A long-running clash between Wall Street bondholders and the people of Puerto Rico is coming to a head, as the Trump administration looks to lock down gains that financiers have made in their battle with the island.
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