But sincerity requires that any control board have serious teeth. Mr. Williams essentially assumed the fiscal authority of Washington’s mayor. The boards overseeing New York City had the authority to withhold funds from the city to ensure compliance with the budget, and required a wage freeze for transport workers, tuition at the previously free City University of New York, and modifications of the city’s financial plan. The Washington board was authorized to withhold funds if revenues or expenditures deviated from the budget. In Detroit, the emergency manager replaced the mayor and City Council.

Such broad authority has raised claims that these boards are anti-democratic. But the absence of electoral accountability allows appointed boards to fashion budgets free from the political deal-making that often generates fiscal distress. And the power of these boards to dilute or displace the authority of elected officials counters the temptation by those officials to overspend and then seek relief from the state or Congress.

The credibility and viability of any financial control board will depend on granting it the power to impose seemingly harsh policies. Anti-democratic claims ring hollow in the face of Puerto Rico’s current predicament, which has led to sharp cutbacks in services that hardly reflect the desires of a majority of Puerto Rico’s citizens.

Fiscal reform alone isn’t enough, since a $14 billion financing gap will remain through 2020, according to the new plan’s estimates, even if all the reforms are implemented. The simplest way for Puerto Rico to achieve its other key objective, reducing the payments on its debt, would be for its public electricity provider, Prepa, and other troubled service corporations to restructure their debt in municipal bankruptcy, as Detroit did.

Every state is permitted to authorize its municipalities to file for bankruptcy. But Puerto Rico lacks that power, thanks to a 1984 amendment to the bankruptcy laws that — accidentally or arbitrarily — defined Puerto Rico as a state for every purpose except filing for Chapter 9, which governs municipal bankruptcy.