On the news, it seems that residents of Puerto Rico are upset that they don’t get to vote for the President. After all, they are part of the United States. They are requesting 8 electoral votes.
OTOH, I recall a few years ago that the residents of PR had a non-binding quesiton on a ballot as to whether to persue statehood. I beleive it failed as the residents preferred being a territory.
Hmmm. They appear to want it both ways (don’t we all, but that’s a question for the Great Debate column). My question is… What’s the advantage of NOT being a state? And if they don’t want to be a state, do they have any desire for independance?
Sofa King listed a few of the reasons most Puerto Ricans prefer not being a state, no federal income tax but significant federal funding, obviously being a weighing factor. Puerto Ricans are extremely proud of their history and culture(just trust me on this m’kay ;)) and the fear of Hawaii’s fate lurks behind the golden facade of statehood. There are some that favor independance, but I believe they are mostly considered radicals. The Puerto Rican Independance Party supports this.
I recall reading the same thing. They’ve been offered the opportunity to become a State, but prefer being a territory. They seem to have a problem realizing that that they can’t vote for anything in the US unless they join up. At one point, their president was even against full Statehood, presumably because of the big potential of having the US tell him what he can and cannot do.
Puerto Rico is a possesion. It should have the same status as the US Virgin Islands, Guam, Midway, American Samoa etc.
They are like a state in that they can not have their own foreign affairs [ambassadors, treaties, UN membership].
They are like foreign nations in that their citizens do not pay US federal income tax and can not vote in US elections. They elect their own officials and set their own taxes.
Independence might serve national pride, but would ill-serve those Puerto Ricans who want to emigrate to the mainland. Unlike the entire rest of Latin America, they can
now come here without fuss or trouble, legally. If they
become an independent country they’d lose that.
