How to solve the Puerto Rico crisis in 1 painful step

Just let it declare bankruptcy already

Puerto Rico is on the edge of disaster.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo)

Congress fiddled while Puerto Rico burned over the weekend.

The United States territory out in the Caribbean is facing down $72 billion in debt payments, on top of a brutal economic crisis — its unemployment rate is 11.8 percent, its poverty rate is 45 percent, and hundreds of thousands have already fled the island. Puerto Rico has already defaulted on $221 million, and it will default on another $422 million by the end of today.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.