Settlement
On 4 May, the first signs of compromise emerged as the Senate approved a new budget-balancing package which proposed a 5.9% sales tax and a corporation tax to be placed only on corporations with earnings of more than ten million dollars. This deal was still not approved by the House. An emergency commission was formed on 8 May under the Archbishop of San Juan, which negotiated with the Governor, the Legislature and the banks. It reported on 10 May and brokered a deal which was accepted in the early hours of the following morning. Under the deal, the legislature will approve the emergency loan to finance Puerto Rico's $740 million shortfall. Having won approval by the Legislature, the Governor signed the budget-balancing package into law on 13 May, officially ending the shutdown.
The Legislature has since approved a sales and use tax, with a portion set aside for repaying the loan. The NPP leadership insisted on a maximum combined sales tax of 5.5% (4% state and 1.5% municipal), but the NPP team working on the proposed legislation botched the document and placed wording in it that made the state sales tax 5.5%, for a total of 7%. The Senate immediately recognized the error and placed the bill for immediate approval. Once it was approved, it was revealed that no Senators from the Rosselló faction of the NPP had read the bill, and they had approved with their votes exactly what Governor Acevedo Vilá wanted. The House then attempted to block the bill from reaching the Governor for his signature, but the Puerto Rico Supreme Court ordered the Speaker to complete the process. Just prior to the beginning of the sales tax enactment on 15 November, former Governor Carlos Romero Barceló filed a lawsuit attempting to derail the initiation of the tax, but that too failed to gain any traction in the Courts, and businesses began collecting the new tax on 15 November.
Read more about this topic: 2006 Puerto Rico Budget Crisis
Famous quotes containing the word settlement:
“The Settlement ... is an experimental effort to aid in the solution of the social and industrial problems which are engendered by the modern conditions of life in a great city. It insists that these problems are not confined to any one portion of the city. It is an attempt to relieve, at the same time, the overaccumulation at one end of society and the destitution at the other ...”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“The difficult and risky task of meeting and mastering the new—whether it be the settlement of new lands or the initiation of new ways of life—is not undertaken by the vanguard of society but by its rear. It is the misfits, failures, fugitives, outcasts and their like who are among the first to grapple with the new.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“Before I get through with you, you will have a clear case for divorce and so will my wife. Now, the first thing to do is arrange for a settlement. You take the children, your husband takes the house, Junior burns down the house, you take the insurance and I take you!”
—S.J. Perelman, U.S. screenwriter, Arthur Sheekman, Will Johnstone, and Norman Z. McLeod. Groucho Marx, Monkey Business, terms for a divorce settlement proposed while trying to woo Lucille Briggs (Thelma Todd)