I think Puerto Rico needs to sort out the issues that they got themselves in to in-house to show some responsibility, but it's clear that their leaders are now
trying to blame their shitty economic failings on their status as a territory, a status of their own choosing.
This means I have zero doubt that the current batch of Puerto Rican politicians will attach their deadweight of an island to the U.S like a starving parasitic
lamprey on a juicy whale when the fifth plebiscite on the status of Puerto Rico comes
next month.
Before this long-expected bankruptcy, keep in mind that the choice for Statehood were repeated rejected by well over half of the Puerto Rican population, in every plebiscites held on the island.
In fact, when Puerto Rico was doing alright back in the early 2000s, a good one-third of the country consistently want to cut ties with the U.S and be their own independent country!
Fast forward to gloomier era, the last time Puerto Rico had a vote on their territory/statehood status was in
2012, when only 834,191 (about 40% of total voters who came to the poll) favored statehood, while 500,000 casted ballots were intentionally left blanks, at the urging of the
pro-Independence politicians. Puerto Ricans still had their Bouriqua "national pride", despite the government debts, pension liabilities, and new taxes were mounting, while the youngs bolted for the mainland by tens of thousands every year.
Now that Puerto Rico is in the toilet, I see Puerto Rican politicians taking turn to passionately expounding the virtues of being a U.S State in their speeches (all with a disctinct Socialist flair) to their retired, unemployed, and generally broke electorate in the past couple of months, with special emphasis on the money they could may be get from Texas' oil revenues, or the money they could msy be get from California's films revenue, or the money they could may be get from Florida's tourism revenue.
With this bankruptcy and 70 Billion in debts, I fully expects the Puerto Rican Independence campaign to be dead as a doornail, and all those half-a-million blank nationalistic votes from 2012 will firmly be for Statehood in June 2017.
The path that Puerto Rico take to join the American Union could have been a beautiful story. Our 51st State Candidate could have walked proudly onto that stage twenty years ago and proclaim what cultural wonders, endless potentials, and real benefits they're offering to the Union as a tourism powerhouse in the Caribbean.
Now, all they're bringing to the table is their shame.
