The current president took time away from his busy golf schedule to insult people who are literally struggling for their lives. That he and his administration sees bigoted insults as an appropriate response to a humanitarian nightmare is reprehensible.
We are witnessing a slow genocide by passive-aggression. History will not judge us kindly if we allow this to stand. Please do not use Puerto Rico as a partisan football. Now is the time to put country over party, to dig deep and do what is necessary to save and improve the lives of our fellow Americans.
Some policy suggestions:
- Give Puerto Rico a permanent exemption from the Jones Act.
- Use distributed power generation, through easily installed solar panels, as a strategy to return power to remote areas. Transmission lines would take months to replace. The people don't have months.
- Instruct the PROMESA FOMB that their earlier-negotiated agreements with creditors are not reasonable in a post-Maria world. They must be renegotiated, and Puerto Rico needs an option to exit the debt crisis. Please be creative.
- Ensure the adequate and timely distribution of humanitarian aid.
