An interesting NYT piece notes –
“To appreciate why
it is proving so hard for Washington to help debt-burdened Puerto Rico, it
helps to go back to 1975, the year New York City went broke, and consider the
role played in that crisis by a prominent Republican senator from Texas named
John Tower.
Fearing more
financial failures in other municipalities, federal securities regulators
wanted Congress to force states and cities to provide truthful financial
information about bonds they were going to sell to raise money. But cities were
having none of it, instead rallying around the cause of states’ rights. The
fight was resolved by Senator Tower, the first Texas Republican elected to the
Senate since Reconstruction. He introduced a bill that kept federal regulators
at bay.”