Promise Land: The Inside Story of the Puerto Rico Debt Crisis

The herculean struggle to restore stability in Puerto Rico and a grave warning for America

“A shrewd and ominous insider account of a government in financial free fall.”
—Publishers Weekly

"I could not put down David Skeel’s new book. It is at once an engrossing and personal narrative, an illuminating analysis of inventive legal and political strategies, a sobering examination of responses to the debt crisis in Puerto Rico, and a preview of messes to come.”
—Martha Minow, Professor, Harvard University, author of When Should Law Forgive?

“This is a gripping and insightful book. David Skeel has written not only an essential history of Puerto Rico’s fiscal travails but a profound meditation on the condition of American politics.”
—Yuval Levin, The American Enterprise Institute

Puerto Rico is America’s forgotten island, and since 2015, the site of the largest governmental default in U.S. history. After the island’s governor declared its $70 billion of debt “not payable,” House minority leader Nancy Pelosi extracted a promise from House Speaker Paul Ryan to “take action” on Puerto Rico in return for the Democratic votes he needed for must-pass December 2015 spending legislation. This handshake led to a 2016 law called PROMESA (“promise” in Spanish), which subjected Puerto Rico to an oversight board, but also gave Puerto Rico the power to file for bankruptcy, a right no state has.

Weaving together his first-hand experience as a member of the board—and during the crucial period, its chair— with astute insight into the key federal and local lawmakers, David Skeel recounts the epic struggle to restructure Puerto Rico’s debt and restore fiscal stability, a battle protracted by the most destructive hurricane in a century, a scandal in the governor’s office, earthquakes, and the pandemic. The board was challenged both by protestors furious at the colonial implications of the board and by bondholders unhappy with the restructuring, one of which enlisted former New Jersey governor Chris Christie in a scheme to derail Skeel’s reappointment.

Promise Land is a riveting story about the island Theodore Roosevelt urged America’s leadership to seize at the end of the Spanish-American War, and about how governmental crises are handled in twenty-first century America.