The Huffington Post Talks with Eric LeCompte About Puerto Rico

Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of Jubilee USA was recently cited in The Huffington Post speaking on Puerto Rico. Read excerpt below and follow link to full article.

Progressives Still Don’t Like The Puerto Rico Bill

By: Laura Barron-Lopez and Daniel Marans

"Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA, a religious anti-poverty group and proponent of restructuring Puerto Rico’s debt, endorsed the bill while acknowledging it is not 'perfect.'

LeCompte argued that even the threat of court-supervised restructuring would create an incentive for parties to reach a voluntary agreement to put Puerto Rico’s debt on a sustainable path.

The bill contains other provisions that give Puerto Rico’s government more leverage over creditors, LeCompte said. He described an 'innovative' clause that would require all creditors in a given bond pool to proceed with a voluntary restructuring deal if the lenders holding two-thirds of that pool’s bonds agreed to it. This would prevent a small number of holdouts from blocking a resolution, he said — something that was a problem in Argentina and other countries plagued by sovereign debt crises.

'Speaker Ryan (R-Wis.), Chairman Bishop (R-Utah) and Rep. Duffy (R-Wis.) have really strongly stood against the special interests,' LeCompte said. 'It is really pretty amazing that they put the people of Puerto Rico first and a small group of creditors second.'"

Read more here.