"A $2.7B corporate giveaway that'll kill more jobs than it creates" - Lausell

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Puerto Rican Coalition today urged the Senate to use the pending Jobs bill to kill a $2.7 billion taxpayer-funded corporate giveaway that'll create 40 minimum-wage jobs in the U.S. Virgin Islands – but will directly eliminate at least 400 higher-paying jobs in nearby Puerto Rico, which already has a 16.5% unemployment rate.

"If Washington is serious about creating jobs, ending waste and stopping corporate welfare, we should quash a $2.7 billion taxpayer-funded corporate giveaway that'll kill more jobs than it creates," said NPRC Chairman Miguel Lausell. 

NPRC President Rafael Fantauzzi said the Jobs bill, which the Senate has delayed until after the President's Day Recess, extends a program which returns a portion of the federal excise tax paid on Captain Morgan and other rums to the U.S. Territory where it is manufactured.  The U.S. Virgin Islands has promised Captain Morgan's manufacturer, London-based Diageo, LLC, that if it moves its operations from Puerto to St. Croix, it will give the liquor giant nearly half of all revenues it will receive under the program, about $2.7 billion in all.

Approximately 400 relatively high-wage distillery workers are employed at the distillery in Puerto Rico where Captain Morgan is presently distilled, but under its agreement with the Virgin Islands, Diageo will only have to hire 40 new workers in St. Croix, none of them paid more than the federal Minimum Wage of $7.25 hourly, Lausell said.

 "Captain Morgan's owners make off with $2.7 billion, but they only paid $1.8 billion for Captain Morgan in the first place," said Fantauzzi.  "On a per-gallon basis, they'll make more in tax dollars than it costs them to produce the rum."

"When politicians pay a company more than it costs to make their product, that's not a 'Jobs' bill, it's corporate welfare,"  Lausell charged.  "When taxpayers spend $2.7 billion to eliminate more jobs than they create, it's a 'Job-Killing' bill."

The National Puerto Rican Coalition's mission is to enhance the social, political, and economic well-being of all Puerto Ricans on the mainland and the Island with a special focus on the most vulnerable.

SOURCE National Puerto Rican Coalition

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