For people putting this on budgets/PR, lots of states are in dire situations with budgets/funds and healthcare on the mainland. If you swapped a few states with Puerto Rico in the "big water" you'd have the same exact situation. Many states are in the red. A country should stand up for their citizens in emergencies and tragedies and that includes Puerto Rico.
It's sad that they abuse their tax free status and made themselves into a tax haven that is abused without actually bringing much income into the country, then changed tax regulations and increased deficit spending before being forced into austerity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_government-debt_c...
I hope they will allow Congress to incorporate them into the USA as a state after this.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/puerto-...
A lot of the problem is their lack of autonomy. They are dependent on the federal government yet don't have the power of a US state. It's not so much corruption as desperation that drove them to this point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_government-debt_c...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_government-debt_c...
That is not at all unique to PR.
It's a widespread problem in U.S. government. That's the reason the city of Detroit went bankrupt. Many, many government entities have liabilities, especially pensions, that they can't afford. Many companies have the same problem; it drove General Motors to bankruptcy. The federal government toys with bankruptcy each time Congress needs to authorize additional debt, and now the leading tax legislation will drive up debt considerably more.
But the overwhelming example is the Great Recession of 2008, which was due to the exact same problem, on a very wide scale, on Wall Street. In that case, the bonds (and other financial instruments) were based on fraudulent housing loans.
In most of the above cases, the taxpayers of the U.S. stepped in and rescued the debtors. Also, in the West, debtors prison is no longer considered a good thing - bankruptcy lets debtors recover. There's no reason PR shouldn't benefit from the same support.
PR was not at all prepared for something that was obviously coming and they are trying to use political pressure to get the huge anti-Trump sentiment in the country to think it was all Trump's fault when he has little to do with overseeing FEMA's response. I'm sure there are things he could have done better. His statements have been asinine and politically tone deaf for sure, but this isn't about him. This is about the mess PR made. If they want to be a state, then be a state. Otherwise, they offer nothing to the USA and in my opinion should be dissolved as a US territory.
Trump is the elected President and is directly responsible to the citizens for the Executive Branch, including FEMA. His job is, specifically, the performance of the Executive Branch. If FEMA isn't delivering, he needs to see to fixing it ASAP. He needed to see to it that they were prepared.
> PR was not at all prepared for something that was obviously coming and they are trying to ...
Is there more to that then words typed in a web forum? That is all I've seen; nothing to support that story.
> Otherwise, they offer nothing to the USA and in my opinion should be dissolved as a US territory.
Membership isn't based on contribution, nor is past contribution a prediction of the future. Should poor people be kicked out? What about Mississippi? The US has always been based on the belief that people, if given freedom and opportunity, can prosper and achieve.
All while being condemned for their inability to wave a magic wand and fix everything immediately, and attacked by the media's endless anti-Trump campaign.
Which part do you dispute?
The Pew Research center found that, excluding the right-wing media, only 5% of the media's coverage of Trump was positive.
http://www.journalism.org/2017/10/02/covering-president-trum...
Edit: 6% of the centrist media's coverage, for those inclined to nitpick.
I don't understand your point
> Pew Research center found
Some information at last! That's what I'm talking about.
First, "excluding the right-wing media" is a pretty major omission. Excluding my right leg, I have no easy means of walking. The right-wing media is enormous, including the leading media companies in many segments (Fox, WSJ, talk radio, etc.).
Second, reading the report, the number the parent quotes excludes both media with a right-wing audience and with a politically mixed audience (the report defines it by the political leanings of the audience, not of the news outlet); the number includes only media with a predominantly left-wing audience.
Third, the parent comment implies that 95% was negative, omitting that 39% of the coverage, even in media for left-wing audience, was neutral.
So here's the actual data, for media consumed by predominantly left-wing audiences: 5% positive, 39% neutral, 56% negative.
When right-wing media lambasted Obama day and night for over 8 years, opposing everything he did, calling him everything from Kenyan to Communist, I don't recall such an uproar about coverage. And the left serve as his propaganda outlet either, the way Fox et al serve Republicans - the progressives didn't like him, and there is no Democratic propaganda front with major reach.
Because that's expected from the right-wing media, just like HuffPo is expected to hate Trump.
The problem is that the "centrist" media is biased. Only 6% of their coverage is positive.
> just characters someone typed into a field on their web browser
Every post on Hacker News is just characters someone typed into a web browser. Every text post on the Internet is just characters someone typed into a text box. What was your point there?
I don't think it makes sense to conflate the corrupt officials (who likely took money from US entities seeking to corrupt them) and the masses of poor and non-influential who are now suffering.
IMHO, If you believe in democracy, then the people are responsible for the actions of their representative republic.
A referendum on the political status of Puerto Rico was held in Puerto Rico on June 11, 2017. The referendum had three options: becoming a state of the United States, independence/free association, or maintaining the current territorial status. Those who voted overwhelmingly chose statehood by 97%
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rican_status_referendum...
; turnout, however, was 23%, a historically low figure.[3] This figure is attributed to a boycott led by the pro-status quo PPD party.[4]
In the US, if only 57% of people vote, you could say our president is only elected by less than about 30% of the people with the popular vote, half the eligible voters or about a third of the country.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_midterm_election
In this case, Congress would need to make the decision that is in keeping with the "people of Puerto Rico". If you read further in the referendum link you posted, there are a number of reasons why the referendum was boycotted.
I doubt that Congress would want to jump into the middle of such an ambiguous situation and declare Puerto Rico a state by fiat.
If you are saying that because PR had a boycott and some didn't vote that the vote is a fraud, then you could say the same about ANY vote in the US because people boycott or don't vote because they don't believe in the system or think it is rigged etc or many other reasons.
That is why you have to vote, boycotting votes is not smart, probably the worst use of a boycott ever as it takes your power away. Usually boycotts are to gain power i.e. not purchasing from a certain company. Boycotting a vote isn't even worth mentioning, it is just not smart.
Your comment here about "people don't vote all the time for different reasons" doesn't amount to the situation in PR at all. It's significant, and to ignore it is dishonest.
Whether you believe a boycott is "smart" or not.
The Puerto Rico statehood referendums are not undertaken pursuant to any law and are not binding. It's like the government of Maryland holding a referendum on secession from the U.S. If only a quarter of eligible voters show up, that doesn't mean that everyone else wants to go along with the minority. It means that the majority don't see the effort as legitimate in the first place. (There is a reason why people would view the 2017 referendum as illegitimate. The ballot was biased against the non-statehood options, e.g. calling Puerto Rico's current status that of a "colony").
The politics of integrating Puerto Rico are likely impossible to make it happen anyway.
The 2012 referendum, in contrast, had 78% turnout. 46% voted to retain the current arrangement, and another 21% voted for either free association or full independence (i.e. increased sovereignty--the opposite of statehood).
That's not how voting works, though...
I'm commenting on "voting" in general there, not specifically the referendum. But even with 100% turnout, there's no legal mechanism for Puerto Rico to force Congress to act.
A better stance to take might be: "We need to reiterate to the citizens of Puerto Rico that they are perfectly free to opt for statehood, or independence at any time."