Fiscal & Physical Health & Safety: What Are the Options?
Good Morning! In this a.m.’s eBlog, we consider the deteriorating fiscal situation in East Cleveland, as epitomized by a seeming breakdown in essential municipal services—combined with an absence of any effective state response to its fiscal insolvency. Then we turn to a seemingly forgotten aspect of the change of administrations in Washington, D.C.: what might that mean to Puerto Rico, where a new study delineates the physical and fiscal impacts on mental health from the disparate treatment the U.S. territory receives—and raises the issue—largely unexplored in the campaign: what will the change in Administrations this Friday mean with regard to the fiscal—and health—situation in Puerto Rico?
Hold Your Nose. As if insolvent East Cleveland did not have enough problems affecting its fiscal dilemmas, Ohio—which in the Urban Institute’s new, incredible, handy-dandy fiscal guide to the states, ranks 45th out of the 50 states with regard to expenditures per capita on corrections and has a high share of its population in state prisons, local jails, or under probation or parole supervision (take-up); EPA Director Craig Butler yesterday ordered mountains of construction and demolition debris removed from an open dump located in a residential neighborhood in East Cleveland, issuing a notice of violation and orders to Arco Recycling to stop accepting construction and demolition debris, and to remove the acres of waste from the site, action taking place in the wake of inspection of the site last week in response to citizen complaints, as well as a determination that the site was an open dump, not a recycling facility as claimed by the company’s owner. The dump was supposed to contain only construction and demolition debris, with the bulk coming from hundreds of abandoned nuisance homes demolished by the Cuyahoga Land Bank. Ohio EPA last June had, in response to citizen complaints, ordered Arco officials to draw down the piles of rubble; however, when the EPA inspectors revisited the site last week, they found four-story piles of rubble and debris which had grown over the past year, not shrunk, triggering the notice of violation and the unilateral EPA order. The mountain of garbage no doubt is part of what appears to have contributed to the 36% population decline in the municipality since 2000. The estimated median income in the city is $20,435—lower than it was in the year 2000, and less than half the statewide median household income.
Puerto Rico has an unemployment rate of over 10%, and a poverty level of 46%. So it was unsurprising that Secretaries Lew and Burwell had sought to “underscore the need for additional legislation early in this [Congressional] session to address the economic and fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico.” The authors noted that the PROMESA legislation enacted last summer was an example of “important progress achieved to date with bipartisan support.” They wrote, however, that the “the work is not done,” focusing on the critical need to pass legislation to avert what they deemed a “Medicaid Cliff” for Puerto Rico and implement an Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to incentivize employment—actions made even more critical because the President-elect’s vows to work with Congress to eliminate the Affordable Care Act will put at early risk significant amounts of Puerto Rico’s Medicaid—putting, according to the two outgoing Cabinet Secretaries, up to 900,000 Americans on the island currently receiving health care under the Affordable Care Act at risk. The two added that while the Congressional Task Force on Economic Growth in Puerto Rico, created under PROMESA to analyze challenges in Puerto Rico and propose federal solutions, had only recommended studying the possibility of an EITC for the territory, they wrote that an EITC would be a “powerful driver to bolster Puerto Rico’s future,” describing it as a “most effective and powerful tool” to address structural challenges like the high unemployment and lesser participation in the formal economy, adding that it will be important for Congress to consider solutions such as an expanded Child Tax Credit, continued authorization for Treasury to provide the Commonwealth with technical assistance, reliance on data in benchmarking economic growth, and initiatives to incentivize small business development.