If Gov. Bruce Rauner and his legislature in Springfield do not put a budget together by Friday, the Land of Lincoln will be the first state in the Union to see its debt plunge into junk-bond status.
Illinois has $14.5 billion in overdue bills, $130 billion in unfunded pension obligations, and no budget. “We can’t manage our money,” says Rauner. “We’re like a banana republic.”
Speaking of banana republics, Puerto Rico, which owes $74 billion to creditors who hold its tax-exempt bonds, and $40 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, has already entered bankruptcy proceedings.
The island’s imaginative 38-year-old governor, Ricardo Rossello, however, has a solution. Call Uncle Sam. On June 11, Rossello held a plebiscite, with a 23 percent turnout, that voted 97 percent to make Puerto Rico our 51st state.
“(T)he federal government will no longer be able to ignore the voice of the majority of the American citizens in Puerto Rico,” said Rossello. Washington cannot “demand democracy in other parts of the world, and not respond to the legitimate right to self-determination that was exercised today in the American territory of Puerto Rico.”
Had the governor been talking about the island’s right to become free and independent, he would have had a point. But statehood inside the USA is something Uncle Sam decides.
Rossello calls to mind Count Mountjoy of Grand Fenwick, who, in “The Mouse that Roared,” plotted to rescue his bankrupt duchy by declaring war on the U.S., sailing to America to surrender, and then demanding the foreign aid America bestows on defeated enemies.
Yet Puerto Rico’s defaults on its debts may soon be our problem. Many bond funds in which Americans have invested their savings and retirement money are full of Puerto Rican bonds.
According to The New York Times, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Marianas and Guam are in the same boat. With 100,000 people, the Virgin Islands owe $6.5 billion to pensioners and creditors.
Then there is Connecticut, a state that has long ranked in the top tier in per capita income and wealth.
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DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
7 comments:
Don't laugh and point fingers Marylanders. We aren't to far behind these bastions of liberal lunacy. In just the last 8 years 1,600 of Maryland's wealthiest families have moved out to other states.( Lou Dobbs "Money Matters" Fox Business Channel). Take a look on Zillow at the number of residents for sale over 5 million dollars. They are all for sale and prices are being slashed. No body in that income bracket will move to Maryland. Look at places like Urbana and Gloucester Virginia. It's all Maryland transplants.
You cannot legally purchase residents.
325 shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, you are letting out the super secret!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Low information voters electing democrats will make this our future.
There are no bodies in that income bracket?
Residents are for sale?
My goodness, I had no idea things were this bad.
My wife and I are leaving the USVI Saturday to return home to Salisbury. It's our second trip here, and it's a stunningly beautiful tropical island (St John). I've been reading the daily news here in the evenings, and telling my bride that, so unfortunately, this may have to be our last visit- the only industry is tourism, yet they've raised the taxes fourfold in two years since we last visited. Their bond status is four levels below junk! I hope we get out alright, and see yas soon!
Anyone notice the debt clock striking midnight in many areas?? WOW!
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