About time. Hopefully this moves forward and gets wide support.
They don’t have to worry about upgrading the Federal Courts at least.
Puerto Rico has had a full fledged Article III United States District Court since the mid 1960’s and a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit since 1984.
Yeah, no thanks.
Same to the California split as well.
There are a lot of pros and cons to Puerto Rico officially joining the union.
I’m not totally opposed. But that place is a mess and will need stringent oversight to get it back to working order.
Hell no. Hell no. HELL NO.
In a perfect world we should have cut them loose decades ago.
Every time one looks at Puerto Rico you’re looking at the result of American Nationalism at its worst. At that time we really were an Empire with the same ambitions as Britain, France, and Germany.
It’s a bad legacy.
why?
How does it benefit the US?
Puerto Rico is a a remnant of America’s most shameful period, along with Guantanamo Bay. We should never have taken it from Spain. We should never have entered Cuba and should never have taken Guantanamo Bay.
I oppose a continuation of the current status. Either grant full independence, make Puerto Rico a Republic in Free Association with the United States or make it a State. But this quasi-colonial status needs to end NOW.
As for Guantanamo Bay, we should move all detainees out as soon as possible, and within no more than three years we should return Guantanamo Bay to Cuba.
There is a lot of fixing to be done.
I’m okay with it. I’m a bit biased though, being Puerto Rican and all.
giving citizen the right to vote for their President.
Why not. It would be great for the people of Puerto Rico to finally have federal representation.
yeah. I can’t think of any reason it would be good for the United States either.
citizen shouldn’t have representation?
Benefits would be more long term. Puerto Rico has one of the largest GDPs in Latin America. PR becoming a State would mean more outside investments into PR, which would mean more tax revenue to the US.
Then we should have let the country have independence.
I can understand that.
I’m not proud of what our ancestors did to take Puerto Rico, though. It’s the most shameful thing this country has ever done. The war was started under false pretenses. We lied to the people of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines about our intentions. We butchered the Phillipinos in a decade long colonial war.
What we did was no different than what the British and French did in Sub Saharan Africa. Unlike those two, most Americans have forgotten or ignored our two decades of colonial empire.
Filipinos. I hate not having an edit button.