After Hurricane Maria swept through Puerto Rico almost two years ago, the Left wasted no time attacking Donald Trump for not immediately restoring the island to its pre-storm condition. The problem was, in many cases its pre-storm condition was pretty awful, as I mentioned here and here. And the current president had absolutely nothing to do with that.
The fact is, economic destruction, wrought by government corruption, left the Caribbean territory ill-prepared for a direct hit from a storm of Maria’s magnitude ~
“(F)or the last 30 years, the Puerto Rican government has been completely inept at handling regular societal needs, so I just don’t see it functioning in a crisis like this one.
“Even before the hurricane hit, water and power systems were already broken. And our $118 billion debt crisis is a result of government corruption and mismanagement.” ~ Jorge Rodriguez (CEO of PACIV, a Puerto Rico-based engineering firm)
The good news is, the law is catching up to some of these sleazy bureaucrats. Last October, the mayor of Sabana Grande and a couple other officials were arrested on corruption charges. San Juan mayor, Carmen Yulin Cruz (the one who tried to blame the president for the post-hurricane mess), along with others in her administration, has been under investigation for obstructing critical supplies and suspected corruption in the purchasing department.
Then, earlier this month ➡ FBI arrests ex-Puerto Rico officials for disaster aid-funded payoffs ~
July 11, 2019 ~ The FBI has arrested two former Puerto Rico officials for funneling disaster aid payments to politically connected contractors.
The Wednesday arrests have prompted concern on Capitol Hill that the island’s corruption will blunt the effectiveness of a recently passed disaster aid bill […]
The FBI indictment charges Puerto Rico’s former Education Secretary Julia Keleher, former Health Insurance Agency Chief Ángela Ávila-Marrero, and four others with crimes related to grifting U.S. disaster aid.
The most recent news from Puerto Rico was the resignation of Governor Rosselló last week ~
Puerto Rico’s Gov. Ricardo Rosselló resigned from office late Wednesday night, capitulating in the face of massive protests in the streets, multiple corruption probes into his government, and an imminent impeachment proceeding.
The beginning of the end for the governor started a few weeks ago when six Puerto Rican officials, including the former education secretary, were indicted for corruption charges. The arrests were seen as emblematic of a culture of corruption that plagued the island’s government and bureaucracy.
Because Rosselló is a Democrat, our mainstreams didn’t want to focus on any of that messy betrayal of the public trust. Instead they made it all about his offensive emails ~
Days after the indictments, investigative journalists released nearly 900 pages of secret group chat messages that included the governor, cabinet officials, and other power players in the Puerto Rican government. The messages were shockingly homophobic, misogynistic, and disrespectful to constituents, activists, and opposition members.
This disgusting behavior was really only the final straw. As Jan Sobieski III, writing at Conservative Papers explains, there’s a lot more history to the sordid tale than the media happened to mention ~
Puerto Rico’s arrogant, condescending, deplorables-deploring governor, who got caught sending disparaging messages about Puerto Rican hurricane victims on a bulletin board limited to just his inner-circle cronies, is on his way out […]
What led to this state of affairs? Same thing that led to Venezuela’s meltdown: Socialism. Puerto Rico went bankrupt in 2016 based on socialist overspending and had to be bailed out by Uncle Sam. The refusal to live within means led to an embarrassing federal “oversight board’ and a program called PROMESA, which sounds like a U.S.-style IMF austerity program. The only reason such a thing could happen is that the local government couldn’t be trusted not to adhere to double-entry bookkeeping. Since the party in power — called the New Progressives — were on the leftside, favoring statehood with the U.S. to help elect Democrats — a bailout would have otherwise meant that they’d just go on spending like Hugo Chavez, offering free stuff to their friends for in exchange for votes. And if statehood were achieved, they’d have access to much more of the cash.
Didn’t work that way. That bankruptcy and its after-effects have made life miserable for Puerto Ricans. The country was struggling under a $74 billion debt heap with an additional $50 billion in unpaid pensions. To pay the debts, the roads, the schools, the services went to heck. As a result, people started to leave, eroding the tax base even further. As many as 700,000 fled to Florida and beyond between 2010-2016. The ugly emails from the governor, effectively calling the remaining Puerto Ricans deplorables for complaining, were just too much.
Puerto Rico has been run by a bunch of feckless, greedy, socialist politicians for far too long. Rosselló’s resignation and the ongoing FBI investigations are a good start at disinfecting the place. But ultimately, it will be up to the Puerto Rican people themselves to choose free market reforms and government accountability – or stick with the island’s ruinous corrupt-ocracy.
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Related:
FBI Arrests Former Top Puerto Rico Officials In Government Corruption Scandal
How School Choice Is Breaking Down Barriers in Puerto Rico ~ More promising news from the territory; the public education system has been in dire need of reform ~
The new year is bringing exciting developments to Puerto Rico’s education reforms. Not only will the U.S. territory open new charter schools, it will also launch a new pilot private school voucher program in the fall.
