Backers of Puerto Rico as 51st state to dominate referendum
Print Edition
PUERTO Ricans got the chance yesterday to tell the US Congress which political status they want for a US territory mired in an economic crisis that has triggered an exodus of islanders to the mainland.
Congress has final say over whether to approve the outcome of the referendum that offers voters three choices: statehood, free association/independence or the current territorial status.
Statehood backers were likely to dominate the vote because three parties that favor other options were boycotting, including the island’s main opposition party.
Among those hoping Puerto Rico will become the 51st state is Ana Maria Garcia, a 52-year-old business administrator who arrived with her family on bicycle to vote early yesterday.
“Puerto Rico would benefit greatly from being a state right now given the crisis,” she said. “It would offer stability.”
Many believe the island’s territorial status has contributed to its 10-year economic recession, which was largely sparked by decades of heavy borrowing and the elimination of federal tax incentives.
Puerto Rico is exempt from the US federal income tax, but it still pays Social Security and Medicare and local taxes and receives less federal funding than US states.
The referendum coincides with the 100th anniversary of the United States granting US citizenship to Puerto Ricans, though they are barred from voting in presidential elections and have only one congressional representative with limited voting powers.
“I believe in the principle of equality,” said Moraima Mendez, an attorney who studied in Indiana and voted for statehood. “I want to stand eye-to-eye with the US .... I want everyone here to have everything I had over there.”
Nearly half a million Puerto Ricans have moved to the US mainland in the past decade to find a more affordable cost of living or jobs as the island of 3.4 million people struggles with a 12 percent unemployment rate.
Those who stay behind have been hit with new taxes and higher utility bills on an island where food is 22 percent more costly than the US mainland and public services are 64 percent more costly.
Those who oppose statehood worry the island will lose its cultural identity and warn that Puerto Rico will struggle even more financially because it will be forced to pay millions of dollars in federal taxes.
“The cost of statehood on the pocketbook of every citizen, every business, every industry will be devastating,” Carlos Delegado, secretary of the opposition Popular Democratic Party, told The Associated Press. “Whatever we might receive in additional federal funds will be canceled by the amount of taxes the island will have to pay.”
His party also has noted that the US Justice Department has not backed the referendum.
A department spokesman told the AP that the agency has not reviewed or approved the ballot’s language.
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