{"id":23850,"date":"2016-06-09T09:13:54","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T13:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=23850"},"modified":"2016-06-09T09:48:49","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T13:48:49","slug":"puerto-rico-bailout-allows-gifts-bequests-or-devises-of-services-or-property-to-control-board-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/23850\/puerto-rico-bailout-allows-gifts-bequests-or-devises-of-services-or-property-to-control-board-members\/","title":{"rendered":"Puerto Rico Bailout Bill Allows &#8220;Gifts, Bequests, or Devises of Services or Property&#8221; to Control Board Members"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/politics\/articles\/2016-06-08\/the-puerto-rico-bill-s-eye-catching-clause-gifts-for-the-board\" target=\"_blank\">As reported by Bloomberg yesterday<\/a>, the PROMESA bailout bill for Puerto Rico includes a provision that would allow members of the control board to <em>\u201caccept, use, and dispose of gifts, bequests, or devises of services or property, both real and personal\u201d for the purpose of \u201caiding or facilitating\u201d <\/em>the board\u2019s work.<\/p>\n<p>If that wasn\u2019t bad enough, the House Natural Resources Committee claimed that such language is <em>\u201cfairly commonplace in ensuring statutory objectives are met in circumstances where non-federal sources of funding will be necessary.\u201d<\/em> Accordingly, the rationalization for the provision in this case is that the board will be able to <em>\u201cfulfill its purpose\u201d<\/em> in the event that Puerto Rico\u2019s government can\u2019t (or rather chooses not to) provide <em>\u201csufficient funding\u201d<\/em> for it.<\/p>\n<p>Will the Puerto Rican government actually fund the control board knowing its existence is widely opposed by the Puerto Rican people?\u00a0 And, of course, there&#8217;s the little matter of Puerto Rico allegedly being \u201cout of money,\u201d as their governor has so stridently claimed for months. According to the CBO, the board will <a href=\"http:\/\/latino.foxnews.com\/latino\/money\/2016\/06\/04\/control-board-to-oversee-puerto-rico-finances-would-cost-370m-agency-says\/\" target=\"_blank\">cost $370 million<\/a> over its lifetime.\u00a0 So it appears that these gifts will come in handy.<\/p>\n<p>So who will be in the giving spirit?<\/p>\n<p>The provision is crafted in such a way that any stakeholder looking to buy influence on the board will be able to do so.\u00a0 Perhaps labor unions (<a href=\"http:\/\/freebeacon.com\/issues\/charity-linked-to-big-labor-only-employs-scandal-plagued-governors-brother\/\" target=\"_blank\">SEIU, in particular<\/a>), which already have generously given their time and resources to <a href=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/index.php\/press-room\/3135-congress-shouldnt-be-fooled-the-puerto-rican-government-debt-audit-is-a-farce\" target=\"_blank\">help Puerto Rico\u2019s government produce a report claiming that billions of dollars of its debt is invalid<\/a>, will take center stage in the gift-giving war, hoping to ensure that the Commonwealth\u2019s underfunded public pension system is provided preference over bondholders.\u00a0 Or what about certain hedge funds looking to convince the board that their claims should be prioritized over the claims of other bondholders, including those afforded first priority in Puerto Rico\u2019s Constitution?<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, rather than actually weighing Puerto Rico\u2019s competing claims, and clarifying where they stand in the context of Puerto Rico\u2019s Constitution, some in Congress have decided to invite a contest between who can out-bribe the others.\u00a0 When people say that Washington is broken, revelations like this help explain why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As reported by Bloomberg yesterday, the PROMESA bailout bill for Puerto Rico includes a provision that would allow members of the control board to \u201caccept, use, and dispose of gifts, bequests, or devises of services or property, both real and personal\u201d for the purpose of \u201caiding or facilitating\u201d the board\u2019s work. If that wasn\u2019t bad [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4881,81,4882,4846,4687],"class_list":["post-23850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-control-board","tag-debt","tag-gifts","tag-promesa","tag-puerto-rico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23850"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23857,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23850\/revisions\/23857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}