Why does Deroy Murdock believe President Obama and members of the congressional “Supercommittee” might benefit from a trip to a warmer climate? Because of the work of Puerto Rico’s Republican governor, Luis Fortuño.
Fortuño was inaugurated on January 2, 2009, just 18 days before Obama. Since then, these two officials have marched in opposite directions, with opposite results.
We were closer to the abyss than most states, Fortuño says. When I came into office, we were facing not just the worst recession since the 30s, but the worst budget deficit in America, proportionally. We were literally broke. We did not have enough money to meet our first payroll. We had to take out a loan to do that. At that point, my wife asked me if we could ask for a recount.
So, unlike the free-spending Obama, and G.W. Bush? before him, Fortuño declares: We cut expenses.
Fortuño gave himself a 10 percent pay cut. He trimmed his agency heads salaries by 5 percent. That bought him the credibility to chop overall spending by 20 percent. He booted some 20,000 government workers, through attrition as well as layoffs, saving $935 million. (Compare that to Bush-Obamas 11.7 percent hike in federal civilian headcount since the Great Recession began in December 2007 excluding temporary Census jobs.) Fortuño has shifted remaining government workers from old-fashioned, statist, defined-benefit pensions to modern, market-friendly, defined-contribution plans.
Ranked No. 51 in 2009, behind each of the United States, in terms of deficit-to-revenue, Puerto Rico now is 15th, with the $3.3 billion deficit Fortuño inherited (44 percent of revenues) now macheted to $610 million (7.1 percent).
