system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Puerto Rico’s debit crisis and the role of the US congress?
gpt
The debt crisis itself is relatively simple.  The Puerto Rican Government owes about $80,000,000,000 and is having trouble paying the interest on that debt, due to a weak economy and social distrust of the government.

Why the US Congress is involved is a little more complicated... but basically boils down to Puerto Rico being in the weird position of not being a US State... but not being a sovereign (independent) country either.  Because of that, Puerto Rico is (in some sense) part of the United States.  So the US Congress has some say on what the Puerto Rico Government does.

At one point there was talks of the US just bailing them out ($80,000,000,000 is a *rounding error* on the US Budget) but that has been shut down because people have trouble understanding how little money that is on the scale the US Government operates. 

There is also talks of granting Puerto Rico the same rights as US Municipalities on the mainland to declare a Chapter 9 Bankruptcy.