Puerto Rico, my heart's devotion

December 6, 2019 9:07 AM

Over 26 months after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico has received only 14 billion (NYT) in aid, in contrast to the 40 billion claimed by the White House on its website and the massive 91 billion dollars promised.

Some of the promised aid has been diverted to pay for the border wall.

posted by dances_with_sneetches (6 comments total)

As I wrote this, the electricity cut off for the third time this week. Even now, with the electricity on, the medical school where I work doesn't have air conditioning and haven't had it four out of five days this week.

When the subject has come up about Trump delaying aid to Ukraine, I think about his delaying aid here (and claiming corruption).
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 9:25 AM on December 6, 2019 [16 favorites]

Ah fuck. How accurate is the reporting here about the new governor vs. the Energy Commission?

The future of a renewable-powered grid needs to happen, and islands have the hardest situation. Where should the capital come from?
posted by anthill at 10:59 AM on December 6, 2019

The "new" governor in that article was replaced earlier this year. (The article is from January 2018)
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 11:03 AM on December 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

The governing system in place in Puerto Rico (with the fiscal oversight board in place designed to put US mainland corporate interests first, but passed off as a way to keep Puerto Rico from getting into worse financial straits) is the most patronizing hypocritical bullshit imaginable. Essentially, people put in place by US corporate interests and Trump raid the treasury and cut services, Trump blames Puerto Ricans and cuts aid, Puerto Rican people suffer more.

The population is also aging rapidly. A couple of my in-laws need electricity to survive. One of them is an elderly aunt that still needs dialysis daily - after Maria she spent some time in NYC with family, but had to return to Puerto Rico after a few months. Her health insurance would only cover her in Puerto Rico.

I hate everything.
posted by dinty_moore at 12:53 PM on December 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

It is too bad the Times saw fit to repeat Trump's claims/excuses of corruption in Puerto Rico but not to counter those with examples (some I think exposed through the Times' own reporting!) of corruption and incompetence in the US federal government, some directly related to Trump appointees: an energy contract given to a company close to Trump's Secretary of the Interior, the FEMA official in charge of the recovery in Puerto Rico being bribed by another energy company and arrested recently, another FEMA official taking a job with that second company (who apparently lied about her salary at FEMA in order to make sure she was appropriately rewarded for services rendered), and just bizarre contracting of grossly incompetent people with no experience or even staff that has to be, just HAS to be, cronyism–all based in the mainland United States.
posted by nequalsone at 1:28 PM on December 6, 2019 [6 favorites]

Fix Everything My Ass -- Someone Is Getting Rich

History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. At least with Katrina, Bush made a pretense of caring about people even as he allowed incompetence and graft to undermine the recovery effort. Trump doesn't just not care about the victims, he actively hates them. And he doesn't just let graft happen, he encourages it by example. I don't know that we'll ever find out where the money's really going until long after he's gone, if at all.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:07 AM on December 7, 2019 [1 favorite]