At protest, Irizarry Mora criticizes economic policies

Raynee Hance González - CyberNews Wire Service/PR Daily Sun
San Juan, Puerto Rico - June 6, 2009

Economist, Dr. Edwin Irizarry Mora -center left- marches along with Juan Dalmau, PIP's secretary General

Gov. Fortuño’s plan to try to turn the economy around is damaging for the island, economist and Puerto Rican Independence Party leader Edwin Irizarry Mora said Friday, as he joined thousands of others who marched to protest the administration’s policies.

Irizarry Mora said the governor’s decisions are only drowning the citizens in a worse economic crisis by taking away their finances and purchasing power.

"I think that what these government measures are doing is deepening the crisis, the economic recession we're going through," he said, while participating in the People's Assembly.

The former gubernatorial candidate said that governments dealing with recessions generally choose to increase public investment and increase the number of public employees.

However, the administration's policies and its plan to fire thousands of workers should come as no surprise, the professor said.

"This government has been stubborn in following a policy of the US. Republican style, clearly neoliberal, against the working class, the Puerto Rican middle class," he aid. "This is something that was foreseen; the NPP announced it from the start of the political campaign. And certainly they're doing what they announced."

Irizarry Mora accused the administration of responding to specific interests and will continue imposing taxes on workers and giving benefits to large corporations.

“It really pains me, most of all is the fact that large number of Puerto Ricans voted in this party that’s in power, for those legislators who are now doing exactly what is written in NPP platform”, he said.