So are Detroit, or St Louis, or Presque Isle or Millinocket. Nobody gives a red fuck about the poor white folk who have lost their livelihoods and existence in those places. They are all US citizens too.
Part of 2.5 Billion given out by just one department (Agriculture) specifically designed to modernize electrical systems for “poor white folk” in middle America.
Turns out those people are over represented in Congress who doles out such things whereas PR gets no representation...
If we did “poor white” rural citizens/states would be in big trouble as they currently get more money than they should from a purely proportional measure.
I'm perfectly willing to see my tax dollars go to the Puerto Rican grid as soon as they start paying taxes.
But they are US Citizens still. And the federal government subsidizes plenty of infrastructure into areas that pay relatively little federal tax, because we as a country care about fellow citizens’ well-being.
Great, then they should get no money from the rest of us.
>But they are US Citizens still.
So what? Puerto Rico isn't a state.
But unless we’re going to give them independence, we still have an obligation to protect and, to some extent, provide for them.
Let them pay their own way.
They also are a net drain on the treasury. They get more federal dollars out than they put in.
Let them pay their own way.
There is definitely something to be said about economic prosperity in a lot of places, but abandoning 3.41 million US citizens after a hurricane hits doesn't seem very American.