On the recordJune 9, 2016
When we started these negotiations, with both sides wanting to do something, with both leaderships in the House wanting to do something, I knew that at the end of the day I would be voting for a bill. I knew I had to do that for a very simple reason. Inactivity, inaction was not an option. The only option was to do a bill. What that bill would look like was my question. What that bill would look like was my challenge and my dilemma. The bill changed. The original bill had some provisions that no one could really defend on either side. We have made a bill now that does have some hard pills to swallow, but then over $70 billion in debt with no signs of being able to pay is even more of a bitter pill to swallow. The territory is hurting. The people are hurting. In fact, if anything comes out of this that is positive, it is the fact that the U.S. Congress is paying attention to Puerto Rico in a way that it hasn't in a long, long time, if at all. We are paying attention, and we want to do something about the situation at hand. We are not supposed to direct our comments to the gallery or to the TV cameras, so I won't do that. But there are people watching this, and they need to have faith in the fact that both parties have come together to come together with a plan that will help us, a plan that will bring Puerto Rico back out of this debt situation.…
