On Monday, August 4, President Donald Trump dismissed five of the seven members of the Puerto Rico Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB), the entity that, for all intents and purposes, governs Puerto Rico. The move likely signals the start of a Trumpian takeover of the island that will only intensify austerity, poverty, and the multifaceted crises afflicting the oldest colony in the world.
No one should shed a tear for members of the board — or La Junta, as Puerto Ricans not-so-lovingly call it. The FOMB was created by federal law (PROMESA, signed by President Barack Obama in 2016) to address Puerto Rico’s financial crisis and oversee its debt restructuring process. It was given near-unlimited power by Congress to set Puerto Rico’s budget, veto local laws, and overrule the elected governor.
For the past decade, the board has used that authority to implement a draconian austerity regime in Puerto Rico. It has slashed pensions, cut funding for public education, and pushed for privatization of the island’s electrical grid to companies that charge Puerto Ricans more money for a poorer service.
While Puerto Ricans feel the pain, bondholders swim in profits. The board’s members, and its army of lawyers and consultants, are handsomely paid as well. Executive director Robert Mujica Jr, who was Andrew Cuomo’s former budget chief in New York, makes $625,000 a year — more than the president of the United States. As of 2022, McKinsey had raked in $120 million for consulting on the island’s debt restructuring. By now, that figure is surely higher.
The Trump administration has cited the board’s profligacy and excess as cause for the five members’ dismissal, but that’s a cheap misdirection. First, because while the FOMB was…
Auteur: Alberto C. Medina
