As Puerto Rico, under the leadership of President Obama’s pal, Governor Alejandro García- Padilla (D) defaults on its debt payments to bondholders, Univision aired an entirely one-sided report about an “anti-austerity” demonstration in front of a New York-based investment firm.
Univision’s report only included the voices of demonstrators and politicians who essentially oppose fiscal discipline on the island, and along with it oppose honoring the debt repayment obligations that every administration in the U.S. island territory responsibly fulfilled, until August of 2015.
Univision’s Blanca Rosa Vílchez apparently made no attempt to include the perspective of the bondholders of the investment company targeted by the demonstrators, BlueMountain Capital Management LLC, which purchased over $400 million in Puerto Rico bonds.
Instead, Univision featured a protester, along with leftist New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito, who evidently expect the Government of Puerto Rico to ignore its obligations and maintain a pattern of inefficient and unjustified spending, including in an island public school system that has a dwindling number of students.
PROTESTER: They want to close schools, they want to fire teachers, and want all kinds of austerity that the Puerto Rican people don’t deserve.
...
NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL SPEAKER MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO: Austerity is not the solution. We have seen its implementation in other countries, and it has not resulted favorably for those countries, and we cannot follow this path, in this situation.
In addition, the Univision report cited two other protesters, along with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who apparently favors a federal bailout for the island.
The tax and spend, big government policies of the current Democratic administration in Puerto Rico have coincided with worsening economic conditions on the island, as well as an unprecedented slashing of the territorial government’s bond ratings to junk status, effectively shutting it out of the U.S. municipal bond market.
In just two and a half years, Puerto Rico’s previous progress towards fiscal responsibility and economic recovery (as measured by debt rating classification actions and multiple indicators of economic activity) made under former Republican Governor Luis Fortuño, has been entirely reversed.
The relevant portions of the referenced national newscast appear below:
Noticiero Univisión 07/30/2015 6:30 PM
MARIA ELENA SALINAS, ANCHOR: Puerto Rico is in the midst of what financial experts consider an extremely serious economic situation. This has negatively impacted the lives of island residents, and as Blanca Rosa Vílchez explains to us from New York, the core problem is how to pay the public debt without continuing to hurt the people.
BLANCA ROSA VILCHEZ, CORRESPONDENT: They arrived at the offices of a multinational investment company, with investments in Puerto Rico, to demonstrate their rejection of measures that are being proposed for the island to refinance its public debt.
PROTESTER: They want to close schools, they want to fire teachers, and want all kinds of austerity that the Puerto Rican people don’t deserve, because it wasn’t the Puerto Rican people who created the crisis.
…
BLANCA ROSA VILCHEZ, CORRESPONDENT: This week, local leaders and the Mayor of New York Mayor also called for assistance for Puerto Rico.
NEW YORK MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO: Puerto Rico has an important place in the United States, and deserves the help and support of the federal government.
NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL SPEAKER MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO: Austerity is not the solution. We have seen its implementation in other countries, and it has not resulted favorably for those countries, and we cannot follow this path, in this situation.
