CONGRESS/NATURAL DISASTERS/PUERTO RICO/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Call it Donald Trump’s second wall, only this time the president’s target is not migrants coming north but dollars going south to help storm-tossed Puerto Rico. Additional food aid for the island’s poor will soon be exhausted without supplemental funds opposed by the White House. At the same time, billions in community development appropriations have yet to leave Washington — a year after being approved by Congress to assist in the recovery from Hurricanes Maria and Irma. Next to the government shutdown and bitter fight over immigration policy, Puerto Rico’s plight remains an afterthought to many in Washington. But the big common denominator is Trump’s high profile and the fact that low-income, often Hispanic or Latino families are feeling the crunch, even as U.S. citizens. Republicans wince; Democrats seethe…Beyond dollars and cents, two explanations are offered for the president’s stance. One is his fixation on Puerto Rico’s substantial debt and the notion that bondholders will profit from disaster aid. The second goes to the rawer stuff of Florida, a state important to Trump’s base and the site of closely-fought elections this past year.”
–David Rogers, “Trump White House stonewalls as Puerto Rico aid runs dry,” Politico, January 25, 2019 3:32 pm