Greg Stohr (Bloomberg/Quint) writes concerning the latest vote that determines that the federal authorities can proceed to exclude Puerto Rico from the Supplemental Safety Earnings program, which covers needy people who find themselves blind, in any other case disabled or aged.
The federal authorities can proceed to exclude Puerto Rico from a Social Safety advantages program, the U.S. Supreme Court docket dominated in a call that can cease greater than $2 billion a 12 months from flowing to the island’s residents.
Voting 8-1 to overturn a decrease courtroom ruling, the justices mentioned the Structure’s equal safety clause doesn’t require the inclusion of Puerto Rico’s residents within the Supplemental Safety Earnings program, which covers needy people who find themselves blind, in any other case disabled or aged. Writing for the courtroom, Justice Brett Kavanaugh mentioned Congress can constitutionally deal with Puerto Rico in another way than the 50 U.S. states in some circumstances. Though Puerto Rico residents are U.S. residents, they’ll’t vote in federal elections and customarily don’t pay U.S. earnings taxes.
“If this courtroom had been to require similar therapy on the advantages aspect, residents of the states might presumably insist that federal taxes be imposed on residents of Puerto Rico and different territories in the identical method that these taxes are imposed on residents of the states,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Doing that, nevertheless, would inflict important new monetary burdens on residents of Puerto Rico, with severe implications for the Puerto Rican folks and the Puerto Rican financial system.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor, whose household is from Puerto Rico, was the lone dissenter. She wrote that “there isn’t any rational foundation for Congress to deal with needy residents dwelling wherever in the US so in another way from others.” [. . .]
For full article, see https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/supreme-court-rejects-puerto-rico-residents-on-federal-benefits
[Photo above: The Puerto Rican flag flies above a damaged house in Yabucoa, in eastern Puerto Rico. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images).]