WASHINGTON — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy says Congress will not act to help Puerto Rico ahead of a May 1 deadline when hundreds of millions in bond payments come due.
McCarthy’s admission Tuesday amounted to a statement of the obvious days ahead of the deadline. Lawmakers remain divided and the committee tasked with passing a bill has not done so.
Still, McCarthy says he hopes to get a bipartisan bill through the House before July 1, when even larger bond payments come due.
The California Republican claims lawmakers have been waiting for answers from the Obama administration’s Treasury Department. Yet lawmakers’ own divisions have stood in the way, with some conservatives wary of a bailout despite leadership’s insistence that their oversight bill would not put taxpayers on the hook.