On the recordDecember 17, 2015
I thank the gentlewoman and our leader. This is a very bittersweet moment for me. On one hand, I am so proud of what my staff and I and other Members and your staff did to make the financial services portion of this bill much better, much, much better. We increased dollars to the IRS. We helped the Treasury Department. We helped the Small Business Administration. We did so much that would make anyone want to be the top yeller and screamer in favor of this bill. For that I am very grateful, and for that I am very thankful to the committee and to our leadership and to the staff. But then, as one who was born in an American territory called Puerto Rico, there is a glaring omission; and that is that, in Puerto Rico's worst financial crisis, we could not get our colleagues on the other side to agree to just some simple help, some simple opportunities to declare bankruptcy, for a simple opportunity to put their house in order, a simple opportunity to restructure their debt. I have said so many times here that I find myself always in this, not contradiction, but this double situation, where I am a Member of the United States Congress, proud of that, a New Yorker since the age of 6, a long time ago, very proud of that, but born in the territory. And if there were ever a sign of what colonialism is, it is what we have done in this bill. We totally ignore the needs of 4 million American citizens. We totally ignore the need for them to restructure their debt.…
