Puerto Rico’s debt debacle could soon get a lot worse. The island’s government must pay about $1 billion to its creditors on Jan. 4 to avoid defaulting for the second time since August, CNNMoney reported. Even if it pays on time, Puerto Rico will still be saddled with a ton of debt–roughly $73 billion in total, according to Moody’s rating agency. The odds of Puerto Rico making the January payment aren’t good. “It will be very, very hard, very difficult to find a way to do that payment,” Alejandro Garcia Padilla, Puerto Rico’s governor, recently told CNN. “We’re out of cash.” In fairness, Padilla made similar claims last June before Puerto Rico made a $1 billion payment on July 1, avoiding default. But in August, the island defaulted on a small portion of its debt. And conditions have only worsened since then. Padilla appointed a “working group” to present a debt restructuring plan in September. That plan was broadly panned–and it fell $14 billion short of covering the island’s debt hole.
