Betrayed at Home, Puerto Ricans Need a Friend in Washington

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- A scandal-tarred governor resigns after huge protests. His handpicked successor is installed without the legislature’s full support. When that’s ruled unconstitutional, the office passes to the justice secretary, next in line but previously the target of an ethics investigation, who says she doesn’t want the job.

And so it goes in Puerto Rico, whose government has been all but paralyzed since a voluminous leak last month of chat messages between Governor Ricardo Rossello and his advisers that reeked of corruption and contempt for their own constituents. With unrest still simmering, Justice Secretary Wanda Vazquez has reluctantly agreed to assume the governorship until elections next year — even as party insiders engage in machinations for her to step down.

All the turmoil has distracted from the island’s efforts to recover from what ranks as the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy on record, a devastating hurricane that took almost 3,000 lives, and a more than decade-long recession. Since 2006, some 600,000 Puerto Ricans have decamped for the mainland. Nearly half of the 3.2 million who remain live in poverty. An oversight board appointed by Congress now controls the island’s finances, but it’s burdened by a debt-servicing load about four times greater than that of the average U.S. state, and disputes with the legislature and the governor have repeatedly delayed much-needed financial and governance reforms.

Given these constraints, one immediate source of hope for Puerto Ricans should be the federal government. Yet President Donald Trump has been more vindictive than forthcoming. He has repeatedly, and falsely, asserted that the island has received more than $90 billion in hurricane-recovery aid and wanted to use it to pay off bondholders. In reality, about $42.5 billion has been allocated and only about $13.6 billion has been paid out. Now Trump’s administration wants to place new restrictions on funds that have already been promised.

Unfortunately, more red tape threatens to retard the relief effort. Almost two years after Hurricane Maria hit, Puerto Rico still needs to repair roads, flood control systems, schools, hospitals and nearly 30,000 homes that still have blue tarps for roofs, especially with hurricane season looming. Washington should instead encourage the creation of an independent board to monitor recovery efforts and guard against waste and corruption. If administered locally and run with prudence, such a body would have a lot of benefits. It could tap the energy and knowledge of local organizations in way that federal bureaucrats can’t, for instance, while also channeling aid to better-run municipalities that know what needs to be done on the ground.

In the longer term, there’s a lot more that the federal government can do to remedy Puerto Rico’s persistent disadvantages. It should reduce disparities in Medicaid funding to ensure the island’s citizens get sufficient health care, for example. To spur employment and reduce poverty, it could extend the earned-income tax credit to Puerto Rico and allow some flexibility on minimum-wage laws. Providing a waiver of the Jones Act, a century-old statute that makes seaborne commerce between Puerto Rico and the continental U.S. indefensibly expensive, should be a no-brainer.

By staging some of the largest protests ever seen in the commonwealth, Puerto Ricans have signaled their disgust with corruption and their hunger for change. Ultimately, they must decide the island’s future political status — a key step toward ensuring greater accountability. In the meantime, as they recover from disaster, they deserve the full measure of respect and support from their government in Washington.

Editorials are written by the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board.

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