Big Government: Puerto Rico’s Man-Made Disaster

Puerto Rico is getting lots of attention because Hurricane Maria caused a tremendous amount of economic damage.

That leads to an important discussion about the role of government – particularly the federal government – when there is a natural disaster (and a secondary discussion about the silly Keynesian argument that disasters are good for prosperity).

But let’s focus today on a man-made disaster. Puerto Rico is the Greece of America, and it was a fiscal mess well before the hurricane hit. Indeed, there’s already been partial-bailout legislation from Washington.

The Wall Street Journal opined wisely on the topic, starting with the observation that we shouldn’t feel too much sympathy for investors who purchased bonds from the island’s profligate government.

…they knew what they were getting into. Lenders piled into Puerto Rican bonds that paid high yields that are “triple tax-exempt”—they can’t be taxed by federal, state or local governments in the U.S. Yet lenders also knew that the Puerto Rican government was heading toward a debt crisis. The economy has been contracting for a decade, and the commonwealth has $48 billion in unfunded pensions on top of $72 billion in bond debt. Creditors bet that the high yield was worth the political risk, but the music was bound to stop. One lesson of the last decade that creditors don’t want to learn, even after Detroit and Greece, is that sovereign debt to lousy governments is high risk. The abrogation of debt contracts that will now take place is regrettable, but there is a price for betting on politicians.

It would be a nice lesson if investors learned not to trust governments, especially the ones most prone to destructive statist policies.

But that doesn’t address the underlying problem of how to generate growth in Puerto Rico. The answer, needless to say, is free markets and small government.

…the territory will have to grow faster. This is where bankruptcy alone is inadequate. Puerto Rico will have to cut taxes on investment, rationalize welfare programs that deter working, and pare back labor protections that make France look like Hong Kong. If Mr. Rossello won’t do it, then the control board will have to. Puerto Rico will continue to flounder even with reduced debt if labor participation remains stuck at 40% and unemployment is in the double digits.

Unfortunately, the government has been doubling down on bad policy.

Investor’s Business Daily delves deeper into the issue of how big government is strangling prosperity.

The key is to create the correct incentives for the island’s people to encourage — rather than discourage — their policymakers to implement necessary and difficult reforms. This is particularly true with regard to pension reform. …Emphasis should instead be put on the many necessary changes to Puerto Rican labor laws, welfare programs and business and tax regulations which could spur more private sector business and job creation, encourage more people to work, and allow economic growth to resume. …Changes to U.S. laws and regulations discouraging labor force participation in Puerto Rico, such as the high minimum wage and easier eligibility for Social Security disability benefits for Spanish speakers, would also help greatly. And most importantly, Puerto Rico’s lingering pension crisis must be solved, both because of its fiscal significance and because it illustrates the lack of political courage and imagination by the government and the oversight board. …economic activity in Puerto Rico is now so severely depressed by a heavy government presence.

And even the most establishment-leaning Economist noted that government dependency is a major problem.

The island is distinguished by its poverty and joblessness, which are far worse than in any of the 50 states. The territory’s economy, moreover, has fallen further behind the national one over the past three decades. Bad government—not just locally, but also federally—is largely to blame. …Puerto Rico’s annual income per person was around $12,000 in 2004, less than half that of Mississippi, the poorest state. More than 48% of the island’s people live below the federally defined poverty line.

Why is income so low and why is there so much poverty?

Simply stated, idleness is being heavily subsidized. The welfare state reduces labor supply on the mainland. And the same thing happens in Puerto Rico.

Half the working-age men in Puerto Rico do not work. …Many things have gone wrong. Most important, however, is that the United States government assumed too big a role in the Puerto Rican economy, and its largesse enabled the commonwealth’s government to do the same. …the island’s economy is now lost in a thicket of bad incentives…an oversized welfare state…transfers…make up more than 20% of the island’s personal income. These federal handouts…by Puerto Rican economic standards, they are huge. And the more a man or woman earns through paid work, the more they decrease. …federal disability allowances are much higher than the United States average as a share of wages and pension income. Unsurprisingly, therefore, one in six working-age men in Puerto Rico are claiming disability benefits. …For many people, …the money that can be earned through federal transfers and a little informal work is more than the market wage—and requires much less effort.

In other words, Puerto Rico is just another layer of evidence on the well-established link between government and poverty.

And when people do have jobs, all too often they are employed by a bloated and inefficient government bureaucracy.

Puerto Rico’s bloated government… Around 30% of the territory’s jobs are in the public sector. Among other things, a big and coddled bureaucracy undermines Puerto Rico’s educational achievements…nearly half those on the education department’s payroll are not teachers; quality has fallen because of low accountability and mismanagement. …As he walked through Aguadilla’s town hall recently, Mr Méndez…says, is that “All they want to do is find security only. They have no ambition…Everybody wants to work for the government.” Manuel Reyes, of the Puerto Rico Manufacturers Association, also sees little hope that the government’s role will shrink.

It’s almost as if Puerto Rico is a perfect storm (no pun intended) of bad policy.

The solution is – or should be – obvious. And it’s the same one I suggested for Greece. Allow the government to default on existing debt, but only in exchange for pro-market reforms such as a long-run spending cap, privatization, a freeze on the size and compensation of the island’s bloated bureaucracy, and elimination of destructive regulation.

For all intents and purposes, Puerto Rico should become the Hong Kong of America. The island does have substantial autonomy and local policymakers have demonstrated that they sometimes are willing to do the right thing (they made Puerto Rico a legal tax haven for U.S. citizens). Now it’s time to make a great leap forward.

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A Semi-Acceptable Indirect Bailout for Puerto Rico?

I wrote last year about why Puerto Rico got into fiscal trouble.

Like Greece and so many other governments, it did the opposite of Mitchell’s Golden Rule. Instead of a multi-year period of spending restraint, it allowed the budget to expand faster than the private sector for almost two decades.

As the old saying goes, that’s water under the bridge. Since we can’t un-ring the bell of excessive spending in the past, what’s the best option for the future?

The House of Representatives has approved a rescue plan that is getting mixed reviews.

Desmond Lachman of the American Enterprise Institute is supportive but not enthusiastic about the proposal.

The proposed Puerto Rican Restructuring Bill is to be welcomed as a first step towards resolving the island’s chronic debt problem… However, …the bill will be little more than a stop-gap measure to get us through the U.S. election cycle without a full blown Puerto Rican economic and financial crisis before November.

The legislation creates a board with some power to force fiscal and economic reforms.

…a seven-member oversight board…is to have exclusive control to ensure that Puerto Rico’s fiscal plans are enacted and enforced as well as to ensure that necessary reforms are undertaken to help the island regain fiscal solvency. The bill also includes a stay on debt-related litigation to create an environment for consensual negotiations with creditors. It is explicit that it will not involve taxpayer money to bail out the island.

So if there’s no taxpayer money involved, why do people say the legislation is a bailout?

Because the proposal allows Puerto Rico to defer payments on existing debt and then to restructure at least some of that debt. And “restructure” is a politically correct way of saying “partial default.”

So Puerto Rico will be bailed out to the extent that it will be able to stiff bondholders to some degree.

…it would afford the island with a temporary stay on debt principal repayments to allow more time for the voluntary restructuring of its debt mountain. That stay would forestall an otherwise disorderly Puerto Rican default as early as July 1, when some $2 billion in debt repayments come due.

Lachman views that as the least worst of the possible options, so this indirect bailout is not an argument against the legislation. At least from his perspective.

He’s more worried about the fact that much more needs to be done to restore growth on the island.

…it should be obvious that if the island’s economy were to continue to contract at its present rate of around 1 percent a year and if 2 percent of its able-bodied population were to continue to migrate to the mainland each year as is presently the case, the island would become progressively less capable of servicing its $72 billion in public debt or honoring its $45 billion in pension liabilities. A lack of restoring economic growth would also mean that the island would probably need a series of debt write-downs over time.

Writing for Forbes, Ryan Ellis has a much more optimistic assessment of the overall deal.

…the bill is a big win for limited government conservatives. It has no taxpayer bailout of Puerto Rico–not a single dime of taxpayer money is sent down there. …Puerto Rico will have to work their own way out of $72 billion in debt and defaults. They will be helped by an “oversight board”…modeled after the D.C. control board from the 1990s and 2000s, and their job is to approve fiscal plans and budgets, conduct audits, etc.

But Ryan acknowledges that “work their own way out of” is just another way of saying that there is likely going to be a partial default.

The oversight board…will first try to get the 18 classes of bondholders to agree to a voluntary debt restructuring with the Puerto Rican government and government sponsored enterprises. If that fails, the control board will recommend a debt restructuring plan to be enforced by a non-bankruptcy federal judge.

That being said, he’s confident that the legislation won’t be a template for profligate states such as Illinois and California.

Congress is exercising its Constitutional authority to provide all “needful and useful” laws to govern possessions, which is a separate power from the federal bankruptcy clause. There’s no risk of “contagion” to other states.

Though he agrees with Lachman that there’s very little hope for a growth spurt.

It lacks the necessary pro-growth reforms needed for Puerto Rico to get out of its decade-long depression, reverse migration back to the island, attract capital, and create jobs.

Which is why Ryan likes the ideas being pushed by Congressman McArthur of New Jersey. He’s especially fond of territorial taxation for American companies that do business on the island.

The solution is to enact the same type of international tax reform we want to do in the rest of the world–the U.S. companies pay tax in Puerto Rico, but don’t have to pay a second tax to the IRS just to bring the money home. That’s what the rest of the world does, and it’s called “territoriality.” It’s a basic principle of conservative tax reform to move from our outdated “worldwide” tax system to a “territorial” one. There is no better place to start than Puerto Rico.

That would be a good step, and it would be a nice bookend to the very good law Puerto Rico already has for high-income taxpayers from the mainland.

Other conservatives have a less sanguine view of the legislation. Here are excerpts from a coalition statement.

People, companies, states, and territories don’t just “go” broke. Willful prior activity is required. …Puerto Rico has a long history of financial mismanagement brought about by progressive politics and crony capitalism.

Amen. Puerto Rico got in trouble because of bad policy. And the bad policy wasn’t just excessive spending. There have also been grossly misguided interventions such as price controls.

So it’s quite understandable that signatories to this statement are not overly excited that Puerto Rico will have a route for partial default.

Progressive politicians, who are already seeking an indirect bailout – in the form of upending the existing legal structure to allow bankruptcy ‐‐ in the U.S. Congress, argue that a bailout or bankruptcy will help the people of Puerto Rico.

They correctly list several procedural reforms and also point out that there are some obvious policy reforms that should be undertaken.

Sensible economic reforms include allowing Puerto Rico (1) to set its own minimum wage law, including not having a minimum wage law; (2) to be exempt from U.S. overtime rules (which have just been greatly expanded by presidential fiat); and (3) to be exempt from the Jones Act, a protectionist measure that regulates U.S. shipping practices.

Sadly, the legislation is very tepid on these non-fiscal reforms.

So what’s the bottom line? Should the law get three cheers, as Ryan Ellis argues? Two cheers as Desmond Lachman prefers? Or only one cheer (or maybe no cheer), which seems to be the position of some conservative activists?

My answer depends on my mood. When I’m going through a fire-breathing-libertarian phase, I’m with the conservatives. Puerto Rico spent itself into a ditch so they should suffer the consequences.

But when I’m in my long-time-observer-of-Washington mode, I try to imagine the best possible (or least-worst possible) outcome, then I think Paul Ryan and the Republicans did a decent job.

In other words, this is like the fiscal cliff deal back in late 2012. Disappointing in many respects, but not as bad as I would have predicted.

The key question now is whether Republicans insist on putting good people on the oversight board.

And that’s not a trivial concern. I remember thinking the 2011 debt limit fight led to a decent outcome because we got sequester-enforced caps on discretionary spending (not as good as a comprehensive spending cap, but still a good step).

And we even got a sequester in early 2013. But then later that year, and last year as well, Republicans joined with Democrats to bust the spending caps.

That doesn’t bode well for any policy that requires long-run fiscal discipline. Though maybe GOPers will be tougher this time since the spending restraint will be imposed on people who don’t vote in congressional elections.

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Puerto Rico’s Economically Illiterate Government Imposes Price Controls

When I point out that Puerto Rico got in trouble by allowing the burden of government spending to grow faster than the private economy, thus violating my Golden Rule, honest leftists will admit that’s true but then challenge me on what should happen next.

That’s a very fair – and difficult – question. The amount of government debt in Puerto Rico is so large that repayment would be a big challenge. In effect, today’s taxpayers and tomorrow’s taxpayers would suffer because of the reckless choices of yesterday’s politicians.

It could be done, to be sure, just like Greece could dig its way out of debt with a sufficient degree of spending restraint.

That being said, I’m not necessarily opposed to debt relief. Whether you call it default, restructuring, or something else, debt relief would give Puerto Rico a better chance of getting back on its feet. Moreover, I’m not exactly overflowing with sympathy for investors who lent money to Puerto Rico’s profligate government. Maybe they’ll be more prudent in the future if they lose some of their money today.

But here’s my quandary (and I feel the same way about Greece): I don’t mind debt relief if it’s part of a deal that actually produces better policy.

But I’m opposed to debt relief if it simply gives an irresponsible government “fiscal space” to maintain wasteful programs and other counterproductive forms of spending.

And I see very little evidence that Puerto Rico is interested in making the needed structural reforms to alter the long-run trend of ever-rising outlays.

Nor do I see any evidence that Puerto Rican officials are pushing for much-needed reforms in areas other than fiscal policy. Where’s the big push to get exempted from the Jones Act, a union-friendly piece of legislation that significantly increases the cost of shipping goods to and from the mainland? Where are the calls to get Puerto Rico an exemption from minimum wage laws that are harmful on the mainland but devastating in a less-developed economy?

These are some of the reasons why I don’t want to reward Puerto Rico’s feckless political class by granting debt relief.

And here’s something else to add to the list. Notwithstanding 40 centuries of evidence that price controls are a form of economic malpractice, the government has decided to use coercion to prohibit voluntary transactions between consenting adults.

The excuse is the Zika virus, but the result will be failure. Here’s some of what CNN is reporting.

The government of Puerto Rico has ordered a price freeze on condoms… Any store that hikes prices to try to capitalize on people’s fears of the virus will be fined up to $10,000. Other items on the price-freeze list: insect repellent, hand sanitizer and tissues. …The price gauging [sic] ban went into effect at the end of January on mosquito repellents. Condoms were added to the list in early February… “The price freeze remains in effect until after the emergency is over,” Nery Adames, Secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs, tells CNN.

By the way, you’ll notice that the government didn’t address the one thing it legitimately could have done to reduce condom prices.

Condoms are subject to the island’s 11.5% sales tax, one of the highest in the nation.

But let’s focus on the policy of price controls.

With his usual clarity, Professor Don Boudreaux explains the consequences of these horrid restrictions on market forces.

 The price freeze will prevent the Zika-inspired rise in the demand for condoms from calling forth an increase in the quantity of condoms supplied to satisfy that higher demand.  The resulting shortage of condoms will prompt some people to wait in queues to buy condoms, cause other people to turn to black-market suppliers, and cause yet other people simply to not use condoms during sex.  Each of these consequences reflects the reality that the price freeze, rather than keeping the cost of condoms “cheap,” will raise that cost inordinately – and, in the process, further promote the spread of Zika.

Amen. Don is spot on about the negative consequences of allowing politicians and bureaucrats to interfere with market prices.

So we have a government “solution” that actually makes a problem worse.

Just as price controls have contributed to economic misery in Venezuela.

Or caused shortages after hurricanes in the United States.

Puerto Rico needs its version of Ludwig Erhard. Instead, it’s governed by people who apparently learned economics from Hugo Chavez.

P.S. Speaking of condoms, I hope I’m not the only one who is both amused and disgusted that politicians and bureaucrats simultaneously squander money to discover men don’t like poorly-fitting condoms while also imposing regulations that prevent condom companies from offering a greater variety of sizes.

P.P.S. Though I guess those examples of government foolishness are comparatively frugal compared to the “stimulus” grant that spent $6,000 per interview to discover why some men don’t get “stimulus.”

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Puerto Rico: Another Harsh Lesson about the Consequences of Violating Fiscal Policy’s Golden Rule

When I make speeches about fiscal policy, I oftentimes share a table showing the many nations that have made big progress by enforcing spending restraint over multi-year periods.

I then ask audiences a rhetorical question about a possible list of nations that have prospered by going in the opposite direction. Are there any success stories based on tax hikes or bigger government?

The answer is no, which is why I’ve never received a satisfactory answer to my two-part challenge, even if I limit the focus to fiscal policy.

And nobody will be surprised to learn that the fiscal crisis in Puerto Rico reinforces these lessons.

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Hanson explains that the American territory in the Caribbean is on the verge of default.

As Puerto Rico struggles under the weight of more than $70 billion in debt, it has become popular to draw parallels with Greece.

The one theme that is common with the two jurisdictions is that their fiscal crises are the result of too much government spending.

How bad is the problem in Puerto Rico?

It’s hard to answer that question because government budgeting isn’t very transparent and the quality and clarity of the numbers that do exist leaves a lot to be desired.

But I’ve done some digging (along with my colleagues at Cato) and here’s some data that will at least illustrate the scope of the problem.

First, we have numbers from the World Bank showing inflation-adjusted (2005$) government consumption expenditures over the past few decades. As you can see, overall spending in this category increased by 100 percent between 1980 and 2013 (at a time when the population increased only 12 percent).

In other words, Puerto Rico is in trouble because it violated the Golden Rule and let government grow faster than the private sector over a sustained period (just like Greece, just like Alberta, just like the United States, etc, etc).

Here’s another chart and this one purports to show total outlays.

The numbers aren’t adjusted for inflation, so the increase looks more dramatic. But even if you consider the impact of a rising price level (average annual increase of about 4 percent since the mid-1980s), it’s obvious that government spending has climbed far too fast.

To be more specific, Puerto Rico has allowed the burden of government to rise much faster than population plus inflation.

A government can get away with that kind of reckless policy for a few years. But when bad policy is maintained for a long period of time, the end result is never positive.

Now that we’ve established that Puerto Rico got in trouble by violating my Golden Rule, what’s the right way of fixing the mess? Is the government responding to its fiscal crisis in a responsible manner?

Not exactly. Like Greece, it’s too beholden to interest groups, and that’s making (the right kind of) austerity difficult.

Indeed, Mr. Hanson says there haven’t been any cuts in the past few years.

In the past four years, when the fiscal crisis has been most severe, four successively larger budgets have been enacted. The budget proposed for the coming year is $235 million larger than last year’s and $713 million, or 8%, higher than four years ago. Austerity this is not.

What special interest groups standing in the way of reform?

The government workforce would be high on the list. One of the big problems in Puerto Rico is that there are far too many bureaucrats and they get paid far too much (gee, this sounds familiar).

Here are some details from Mr. Hanson’s column.

…more than two-thirds of the territory’s budget is payroll. The proposed budget…contains no plans for head-count reductions. …Median household income in Puerto Rico hovers around $20,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, but government workers fare much better. Public agencies pay salaries on average more than twice that amount, a 2014 report from Banco Popular shows. Salaries in the central government in San Juan are more than 90% higher than in the private sector. Even across comparable skill sets, the wage disparity persists.

In other words, life is pretty good for the people riding in the wagon, but Puerto Rico doesn’t have enough productive people to pull the wagon.

So we’re back to where we started. It’s the Greece of the Caribbean.

P.S. This column has focused on fiscal policy, but it’s important to recognize that there are many other bad policies hindering prosperity in Puerto Rico. And some of them are the result of Washington politicians rather than their counterparts in San Juan. Nicole Kaeding and Nick Zaiac have explained that the Jones Act and the minimum wage are particularly destructive to the territory’s economy.

P.P.S. At least Puerto Rico is still a good tax haven for American citizens.

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What’s the Best Tax Haven for American Citizens?

Since I spend considerable time defending tax competition, fiscal sovereignty, and financial privacy, people sometimes think I can give competent advice on how best to protect one’s income from the IRS.

Hardly. Like most people in Washington, I’m all theory and no practice.

Besides, when people ask me about the ideal tax haven for an American citizen, I generally don’t have good news.

I explain that they are already living in a very successful tax haven, but then given them the bad news that only nonresident foreigners can take advantage of America’s tax haven policies. Though we should still be happy about being a haven since the favorable tax rules for foreigners have attracted lots of investment.

With the erosion of financial privacy, the IRS has considerable ability to track your money around the world, so moving your money to an overseas tax haven may not work. Even Switzerland, for example, has been bullied into weakening its human rights laws so that they no longer protect the privacy of nonresident investors.

Physically moving (your body and your money) to a foreign fiscal paradise such as Bermuda, Monaco, or the Cayman Islands doesn’t provide much value since the United States has the world’s most aggressive and punitive worldwide tax system. You’re basically treated by the IRS like you’re living stateside.

You can join thousands of other people and give up your American passport. But even that step has big downsides since the IRS imposes very nasty exit taxes, notwithstanding the fact that the United States is a signatory to international agreements that supposedly protect the right to emigrate without undue hassle.

But there is still one legal and effective way of dramatically reducing your federal tax burden.

Here are some details from a Bloomberg report on the relatively unknown tax haven of Puerto Rico.

Struggling to emerge from an almost decade-long economic slump, the Puerto Rican government signed a law in early 2012 that creates a tax haven for U.S. citizens. If they live on the island for at least 183 days a year, they pay minimal or no taxes, and unlike Singapore or Bermuda, Americans don’t have to turn in their passports. ……Under Puerto Rico’s new rules, an individual who moves to the island pays no local or federal capital-gains tax — capital gains are charged based on your tax home rather than where you earn them — and no local taxes on dividend or interest income for 20 years. …Moving to the island won’t kill all taxes: U.S. citizens still have to pay federal taxes on dividend or interest income from stateside companies.

And there are even some tax benefits for companies.

The government gives a tax break for businesses that move to Puerto Rico and provide services outside the country, perfect for a hedge fund with clients in New York and London. These firms pay only a 4 percent corporate tax, compared with 35 percent on the mainland. About 270 companies have applied for this incentive, according to officials.

Here are some real-world examples of rich people engaging in fiscal self defense.

About 200 traders, private-equity moguls and entrepreneurs have already moved or committed to moving, according to Puerto Rico’s Department of Economic Development and Commerce, and billionaire John Paulson is spearheading a drive to entice others to join them. …Schiff, who runs Westport, Connecticut-based brokerage Euro Pacific Capital Inc., relocated his $900 million asset management arm from Newport Beach, California, to San Juan in 2013. He plans to move to the island within the next several years. But the savings can be extraordinary, especially given the effects of compounding, says Alex Daley, chief technology investment strategist at Casey Research, a firm that publishes reports for investors. Late last year, Daley moved from Stowe, Vermont, to Palmas del Mar, about 45 minutes from San Juan. …Robb Rill, 43, managing director of private-equity firm Strategic Group PR, relocated with his wife to Puerto Rico from Florida in February 2013. He started the 20/22 Act Society, named for the tax laws designed to encourage people and businesses to set up shop here, to help educate fellow expatriates and serve as a networking group.

So what’s the catch? Well, it depends on your lifestyle preferences. Some people are willing to pay extra so they can live in a big metropolis like New York City. Others are willing to cough up a lot of their money to enjoy California’s climate.

But the folks in Puerto Rico say they have a lot to offer besides big reductions in federal taxation.

The real challenge, she says, is convincing people they can replicate their life. Will they have well-traveled, well-educated friends? Are there decent schools for their kids? Are there charities that wives can join? Is crime an issue? She takes her clients to dinner at outdoor cafes to show them it’s safe at night, and she organizes luncheons to introduce newcomers to native Puerto Ricans. …Puerto Rico isn’t just about low taxes. It has white-sand beaches and temperatures in the 80s year-round. There’s an art museum with a world-renowned pre-Raphaelite collection. It has luxury apartment buildings, over-the-top resorts such as Dorado Beach, and a handful of private international schools that send their graduates to Ivy League colleges. It has restaurants with award-winning chefs. It’s a four-hour flight to New York. And the island operates under U.S. law.

I don’t have money, so it’s not an issue for me. But if I did, my first questions would be about the prevalence of fast food and softball leagues.

But I admit that I’m a bit of a rube.

Anyhow, the New York Times also has figured out that rich people can escape class-warfare taxes by moving to Puerto Rico.

After a slow start, Puerto Rico’s status as a tax haven is beginning to catch on, and some are betting big bucks that the trickle of buyers moving there will soon become a stream. …“I take at least five calls a day from new people considering moving here,” said Gabriel Hernandez, a tax partner with the San Juan office of BDO Puerto Rico. When the law was first passed, Mr. Hernandez advised two people who relocated to Puerto Rico from the mainland United States; last year that number rose to about 15, and so far this year, he has helped more than 80 people make the move and is advising another 60 who are considering it. …As of July, 115 people — nearly all of them United States citizens — have applied and been granted the tax exemption, with another 135 forecast to make the move before the end of the year, according to Puerto Rico’s Department of Economic Development and Commerce. Last year, 151 people were granted the tax-exempt status.

The real reason to share the NYT story, though, is a particularly laughable excerpt.

The reporter wants us to believe that escaping high taxes is “distasteful.”

While there is much to recommend Puerto Rico as a tax haven — it has better beaches than Switzerland, no immigration hassles like Ireland and is a lot closer than Singapore — there are the undeniably distasteful politics of fleeing New York to save on taxes.

If escaping high taxes in New York is “distasteful,” then lots of people with lots of money already have decided to be distasteful.

P.S. If you’re a rich person, but you don’t want to move to Puerto Rico, there are some relatively simple and fully legal steps you can take to deprive the politicians of tax revenue.

P.P.S. In other words, politicians can impose high tax rates, but that doesn’t necessarily mean high tax revenue. Which is why I’m still hoping President Obama reads what I wrote for him on the Laffer Curve.

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