Putting partisan bickering aside - shouldnt Trump want his legacy to include a historic expansion of America? Theres over 1 million puerto ricans in the US.

Yeah, but they aren't likely to vote Republican. They don't want to hurt their majority when it's already in trouble.

Strange to see something so trivial as the electoral college hold back american prosperity. But that is probably true

lmfao. American prosperity? Puerto Rico would only be a burden, with the territory already as deep in debt as it is.

If the United States let Puerto Rico become the 51st state, that wouldn't stop Trump from trying to build a wall around them.

Political holdbacks aren't something to be particularly surprised about when it comes to statehood of US territories. Every time a territory becomes a state, the parties have to agree to some deal that would keep some sort of political balance, which is usually in the form of admitting two states at once, though in the case of Oklahoma it was making two territories come together as a single state.

How would you build a wall in the ocean kuta

Naval blockade ^

I am hearing that they might let Puerto Rico join as the 51st state if Montana is divided into two states, East and West to offset the Democratic influence.

I hear they are going to call it the Montana Compromise.

I mean if you've ever driven through Montana it's about the size of like 12 states so that's fine

Probably not going to happen.

You can have Northern Ireland if you're worried Puerto Rico is too liberal.

Puerto Rico doesn't want to be a state. And it isn't because of the republicans. And stop making stupid comments

http://www.pr51st.com/misconceptions-puerto-rico-statehood-puerto-rico-blue-state/

This was a quick but interesting little article.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/12/americas/puerto-rico-statehood-referendum/index.html

that's a sketchy ass election. i've been Texting with TrPrado about the economics of this, and there aren't massive upsides for EITHER us OR Puerto Rico by them becoming a state... frankly i think they should be given their own sovereignty. i feel like we're meddling a bit here.

Word ^


Learn something from meddling with Cuba; why don't we?

So quick Economics so people can see where i'm standing:

Looking up their current national debt as a percent of GDP, and divide that by 1 minus the proportion of their GDP that's government expenditures, and then comparing that to USA GDP divided by 1 minus the percent of our GDP that's government expenditures, we still see Puerto Rico falling behind the USA. of course the mechanisms of our GDP is are quite similar in terms of what we have HOWEVER, their debt is 68% of GDP compared to our 100%+ debt of GDP

however, there debt has been caused by us STOPPING subsidies to them, and they've defaulted on some debts recently, hinting that the situation is getting worse not better.

For an overarching trend what we need to see are the last 8 years of taxable income that we could collect, but even THEN we have a problem because once Puerto Rico joins the USA then any businesses using them as a tax shelter are going to flee.

So there's a lot of the clandestine economy that'll be difficult to predict, and Puerto Rico had a high risk of natural disasters, so joining the USA could mean better solvency and economic security, but unfortunately it's fall under a lot of sanctions that Latin America and other countries have on the US, and any change means uncertainty, and any uncertainty means a volatile market. PLUS with natural disasters that might help the locals, but it'd hurt the current 50 states in terms of finances

But even with their debt and costs, Puerto Rico’s GDP is on a rise despite a depression for the last decade or so... but they’ve also gotten tax exemptions for US corporations. that would go away if the US got involved, meanwhile their tax system is remarkable similar to ours, but they’d have a Decrease in taxes on the middle class and an Increase in taxes on the upper class if they joined, but neither by a massive margin, though considerable. this could mean some potential solutions to their debt problems, and once again, better solvency.

the problem is with poverty, and how much it'd drain the US and make Puerto Rico more based in dependency than in profitability. poverty rates are decided by those individuals who are employed and whose household equivalised disposable income is below 60% of national median equivalised income are in poverty... and Puerto Rico has more people who’d suddenly qualify under that if they were to be pushed up to the USA's level. also, Puerto Rico has a lot of food crises, and your capability to consistently find food is ANOTHER measure of poverty, so that’s a negative. of course easier trade within the USA would help counteract that, but the balance seems to be pointing to red for the USA (the current 50)

a slight positive, they’re about 30th in the international ppp per capita rankings, but that’s well behind the USA, but if there's going to be a nation we COULD add, it'd be puerto rico.


overall analysis of the economics:

not a great deal for the USA, and only offers profitability in the long run.

this is an edited snippet of my texts to TrPrado on this

At this point, it is not what the people in the other 50 states want. It is what the people of Puerto Rico want. The efforts the Americans have gone to to suppress Puerto Rican independence movements would make Russia proud. If the Puerto Rican people want to become a state, then US should make it happen.

I can confirm that he texted essentially all of that to me.

Carebear:

I think it's largely questionable if the people of Puerto Rico ACTUALLY want it.

The turnout was 23%, and some amount of that COULD be chopped up to indifference, and if they're indifferent then whether or not Puerto Rico actually becomes a state is cool with them

Dammit didn't finish


Because there was a big BUT:

It's also important to keep in mind that the PDP, which favors the current status of Puerto Rico, encouraged all of its members and all of their voters to boycott the election, which also played a fundamental role in the low turnout.

So if there is a public mandate, we still don't have the evidence for it.

They've had a couple of referendums and it usually comes out in favor of statehood. The morally correct thing to do would let them choose between national independence, statehood or remaining a territory and accepting those results, but the US doesn't care about what is right.

Puerto Rico as a state means two likely Senators and 3-5 reps in the house, all of whom are likely to lean Democratic. Trump ran on white supremacy and ethnic cleansing, so he and his base have no interest in admitting 3.4 million nonwhite citizens into the United States.

Puerto Rico has lots of economic problems because it's used as a service area for American business. As a territory, it's within the US sphere but doesn't have to follow our wage and labor regulations. If big business doesn't want it to happen, it's not going to.

@SamWest

sorry mate, but screaming "racist" at Republicans doesn't win you elections anymore. We had more diverse candidates than you did, or are you going to sweep that into the sidetones of history?

if there's a deeper conversation on race relation and political parties you want to have i can link you some Larry Elder and Thomas Sowell videos, that might change your view just a bit

@Yanick

Lmao. Didn't you vote for Hillary?

I'm not a Democrat, but I do think the ringing endorsement Trump got from the Ku Klux Klan says something about his policies.

Hillary was endorsed by the KKK and no trump never advocated for ethnic cleansing or racism

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11/01/the-kkks-official-newspaper-has-endorsed-donald-trump-for-president/

Building a wall on our southern border and deporting millions of immigrants is ethnic cleansing. Same thing with threatening to ban Muslim immigration. These are both examples of racist policies.

Anyway this is supposed to be about Puerto Rico which should be a state but I sadly don't see that happening anytime soon.

@Sam West:

I noticed you ignored the part where I said that Hillary Clinton was endorsed by the KKK. Here is the article link: https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-14/ku-klux-klan-grand-dragon-will-quigg-endorses-hillary-clinton-for-president

Additionally, her mentor Senator Byrd was a prominent member of the KKK and a Democratic Senator until he died in the late 2000s.

Furthermore, no a wall is not ethnic cleaning. A border wall can be debated on it's merits but proponents of it believe that it will help stop drug smuggling and human trafficking.

Deporting illegal aliens who have committed crimes and felonies (which is what Trump has said he wants to do) is not ethnic cleansing.

Ethnic cleansing is essentially state-sponsored genocide and Trump never said that. You need to check your facts and stop listening to so much CNN.