Liberate them. Let them be their own country.

 

I've always said we need to cut them loose. They are a net negative. An expense without any return on the investment.

 

This.
If it means paying off their existing debt as a 'parting gift,' so be it. Still cheaper in the long run and then anything they fail at going forward is totally theirs.

Puerto Rico needs to find it's place in the community of nations, as an independent, self ruling entity.

I say, "Bon Chance!" Or more appropriately, "Buena Suerte!"

 

I wish Barbara Bush had launched a fight against innumeracy, instead of illiteracy. 90+% of Americans are functionally literate, while probably fewer than 10% are functionally numerate. That is to say, almost nobody understands the size and scope and proportion of numbers beyond those that apply to what they experience every day while handling money and other enumerated objects. Some people are OK to about 100,000 or 1,000,000, but very few people understand the size and scope and magnitude of numbers beyond that.

If they did, there wouldn't be any Democrats elected to Congress. But until that day when people learn numeracy, everyone will think they are owed something.

 

No, we didn't fail Puero Rico. The ones that have failed PR are their politicians. The .gov and many of it's public service sector( like the power company) is very corrupt and much of the US financing is not being used as it should be. I've been there many many times and it's a beautiful country that been failed by its leadership.

I'll bet that a lot of the aid that was sent after the hurricane went into the wrong pockets..

 

I guess a lot of our drugs are made there.

If we cut them loose they would probably make a deal with China to build a military base there.

I thought we sent them all kinds of aid, bit they left a bunch of it sit on the docks.
And I thought a bunch of utility crews went there to help rebuild the power network.

Did PR send Houston any help on the Hurricane we had a week before their Hurricane?

Also, There was hurricane damage all over the place. Houston, South Texas, Florida, and a bunch of carribean islands. Superman might have been busy that week.

 

Not drugs, but medical devices. That's changing too because of the tax increases and demands on US companies. In the last five years companies began moving to the South American continent. That's going to make PR's situation even worse. The .gov is killing the golden goose..

 

They are US citizens. Whether you like it or not. Whatever you feel are the Federal Government's responsibilities to its citizens are its responsibilities to Puerto Ricans. And what about us as fellow citizens? What is our responsibility to help our fellow citizens? Our fellow Christians?

I'm not exactly sure what I'm advocating here except a single standard. Personally, I wonder what the Federal Government's responsibilities are to ANY citizens. Other than protecting the rights of the individual, should they even be involved?

 

yes, their economy is a disaster even in good times.

 

For a country that spends TRILLIONS on rebuilding infrastructure of countries that they destroy and bails out banks like it's nobody's business, you'd think that sending a few billion PR's way wouldn't be that big a deal.

 

They already get 21 billion dollars a year given to them by Uncle Sam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_in_Puerto_Rico

 

I'd say adios moocher cha chas. Set them adrift to rule themselves. PR is legendary for corruption and mismanagement. Their work ethic is not up to par either--- dole pineapple once long ago tried to hire people to pick pineapples for $14 an hour or so. Few if any takers. They couldn't even get their truck drivers to deliver aid to their fellow countrymen. We already have Mexifornia, Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, Camden, and other ****-hole liberal swamps. Why add them to the list of dependents?

 

My good friend is an executive for FEMA having just returned from a post hurricane stint in PR. It's his contention that despite the enormous flow of money, corruption among the PRicans has not only hindered the recovery, but stopped it cold. He and his fellow leaders decided to pull out due to overwhelming corruption. It is his claim they rapidly received sufficient funds, fuel, generators and equipment to start the rebuilding effort, yet took nearly no action, instead confiscating the equipment and pocketing the money. Nor is he alone in his assessment.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jan/1/how-corruption-killed-a-golden-opportunity-in-puer/

 

Cut them loose!
PR borrowed money and spent/wasted it.
They continue to elect corrupt and stupid leaders.
They have turned down several opportunities to become a US State.
If they don't want to become a state, and if we don't want to support their stupidity, they need to stand alone.

 

Puerto Rico is a socialist territory. As a whole, the people are also functionally incompetent.

FEMA delivered over 3,000 shipping containers of supplies within a few days of the disaster. The Puerto Ricans did nothing to help themselves. Instead, they wait for others to do things for them. Even the dockworkers used the disaster as an excuse to lobby for higher wages.

There is a huge difference in the recovery when disasters strike conservative states versus liberal/socialist areas. We didn't hear people n Houston complaining because they rallied and took care of the cleanup themselves.

Puerto Rico recently voted to become the 51st state. The Democrats will welcome this because it will bring additional electoral college votes that are guaranteed to go to the Democrats.

In the 1980s there was a push to bring manufacturing jobs to Puerto Rico to improve the economy. It failed miserably because the people are basically untrainable and do not want to work. Most of the Puerto Ricans who did want to work have already migrated to the USA mainland.

There is no benefit to this country if we make Puerto Rico the 51st state. We need to cut them loose and let them learn to fend for themselves.

 

Not to belabor the point, but ALL states receive federal/socialist funding even Texas.


https://comptroller.texas.gov/economy/fiscal-notes/2017/november/federal-funding.php

"Texans sent the federal government $261 billion in taxes in 2016, and the state government received $39.5 billion in grants in return, or about 15 percent of our total federal tax tab. Those grants were the state’s second-largest revenue source, providing more than a third of its net revenue in that year."


This article breaks down how much hurricane relief money Texas should be getting from the federal government:

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/11/28/how-much-money-going-hurricane-harvey-relief-texas/

Here's the Texas governor begging for more socialism:

https://www.texastribune.org/2017/10/31/texas-needs-61b-more-feds-rebuild-after-harvey-sharps-says/

"Texas needs an additional $61 billion in federal disaster recovery money for infrastructure alone after Hurricane Harvey’s devastation, according to a report from the Governor’s Commission to Rebuild Texas that was delivered to members of Congress Tuesday.

Compiled at Gov. Greg Abbott's request, the report was released on the day the governor traveled to the U.S. Capitol to talk Hurricane Harvey relief with congressional leaders."

Texas is still on the dole six months later:

https://www.caller.com/story/weathe...s-cities-still-getting-federal-aid-six-months-after-hurricane-harvey/352886002/

"1: It takes ONE team of partners at the local, state, federal level, and from nonprofit agencies, the private sector and the survivors themselves to recover from Hurricane Harvey
17: Disaster Recovery Centers that remain open to support survivors
41: Counties designated for Individual Assistance
53: Counties designated for Public Assistance
103: Public Assistance obligated projects to repair critical infrastructure
306: Communities in Harvey impacted area participating in the National Flood Insurance Program
1,923: Survivors in temporary disaster housing
8,661: Households temporarily in FEMA-funded hotels
91,000: Flood insurance claims
11,903,736: Cubic yards of debris cleaned in Harvey impacted areas
$19,976,306: Funds dedicated to Disaster Unemployment Assistance
$625,000,000: Dollars obligated for Public Assistance projects
$1,183,209,235: Hazard Mitigation Grant Program Funds available for projects that lessen the impact of future disasters
$1,557,571,583: Grants for Housing and Other Disaster-related expenses paid to survivors
$3,100,000,000: Approved U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) low-interest loans
$8,300,000,000: National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) payments
$13,000,000,000: Money in survivors’ pockets from Federal and State grants, SBA low-interest disaster loans, and National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) payments"

 

Do puerto ricans pay federal income tax?

 

No, they do not currently pay federal income taxes. But if they become a state they will have to start paying taxes. That's why they always voted down the statehood issue. When the vote came up this time, they were so desperate for more relief that they felt statehood was the only way to get more money. The vote came up before the hurricane.

Puerto Rico offers no benefits to the United States. The only benefits are to Democrats.

 

Well, lets create a new industry for them.

Take all the boarder jumpers coming in through Mexico. Instead of giving them a hearing date and letting them go to wander the U.S., ship them to PR. Most speak the language, it's a US terratory so we wouldnt be kicking "refugees" out back to there home countries. Monthly food shipments shipped in, to be distributed by locals. All flights and boats leaving island checked by ICE.


Sort of like 'Escape From New York'..........

 

The only way they ever had a chance of a quick recovery was to completely dissolve their government and appoint people to positions. Those people would be held directly responsible for budgets and outcomes and be allowed to remove anyone under them they suspected of graft and corruption. Integrate the military at all levels as watchdogs.

 

They need to start growing medical marijuana, that'll fix their economy in a flash.

 

The easiest, most cost effective way to fix PR is to have the Chinese come in and completely rebuild their infrastructure. Put in high speed rail systems, solar, wind turbans the whole nine yards, and I'm betting that it could be done for less than the cost of one days occupation of Iraq, A'stan, Syria, Somalia and where ever else.

It's already been established that there are important medical products manufactured there, so why would we withhold money from them simply because they have an inept or corrupt state government?? Hell, my governor should be in prison, and I'm guessing most of the other state governors as well.

Again, I just don't understand why the US government can spend TRILLIONS of dollars outside the borders, and no one says anything, but try to spend some money internally and all of a sudden everyone is a bean counter.

 

...
Again, I just don't understand why the US government can spend TRILLIONS of dollars outside the borders, and no one says anything, but try to spend some money internally and all of a sudden everyone is a bean counter.

Who here wants to spend Trillions of dollars on people outside our borders? I bet close to zero. That was one of Trump's selling points. Making the world pay for itself.

How about we not shovel even more money into a corrupt area that's wasting what they're already getting and spend half that trillion on road repair in other states.

 

We should just cut Puerto Rico free. They wouldn't be connected with us anymore. I almost believe we should do the same with Guam. Let them rule themselves. Now we have some military assets in Guam that are nice to have, but doing what we do with places like Germany and renting the space would work well... until they kicked us out like PI did. Subic Bay is gone.

Even Japan kind of wants us gone from Okinawa and Japan. It comes up often. About the only people we have over that way that kind of like us is S. Korea. And occasionally even that country doesn't care for us all that much.

 

We should just cut Puerto Rico free. They wouldn't be connected with us anymore. I almost believe we should do the same with Guam. Let them rule themselves. Now we have some military assets in Guam that are nice to have, but doing what we do with places like Germany and renting the space would work well... until they kicked us out like PI did. Subic Bay is gone.

Even Japan kind of wants us gone from Okinawa and Japan. It comes up often. About the only people we have over that way that kind of like us is S. Korea. And occasionally even that country doesn't care for us all that much.

Actually the US wasn't kicked out of P.I., we left on our own.

The US/PI were in negotiations to renew the lease on our military bases there and the PI was wanting WAY more money then the US was wanting to pay. Given time we probably would have come to some agreement but then "PINATUBO"...we said "thanks for all the fish" and bailed.

Another factor with the shut down was that unlike in the past where repair work done in PI was of a high standard but achieved at lower cost, it was becoming more and more of a dubious quality, stop-gap measure that required almost immediate re-work in American shipyards at the end of a deployment.

I was on a float and one of our ships didn't even make it out of the harbor before having to go back to the dock to redo the work that had just been done.

 

PR as a sanctuary holding pen.....brilliant ! After the 2020 census count of theatre actual numbers of American citizens per state and then resulting Congressional, Electoral College and federal funding reapportioment, PR will be a welcome addition as a state. Until then, it's technically US territorye and it has ocean shipping, as does every Central American nation including Mexico.

 

For those saying we should cut them loose, do you advocate voiding all the people's citizenship's as well? That's definitely not something I'd be in favor of doing.

 

For those saying we should cut them lose, do you advocate voiding all the people's citizenship's as well? That's definitely not something I'd be in favor of doing.

Well, voiding their citizenship would be part of of it. They are no longer a US held area but their own country then Yes. They are no longer US citizens. PR has many times tried to become their own country and the votes have been largely in favor of it. They don't like us. But they do like the money we give them. They have also voted on asking to become a state and the votes go against them. They don't want that.

In the past, there have been groups of them in places like NYC that protest about them being a US controlled country. They suck up to the whole "I'm a free person" but you are holding my country down. Many don't like us all that much.

 

I do favor NOT cutting them off. If they want statehood, there is a price: It happens some time after the 2020 census count and inevitable congressional, electorial and federal funds reapportionment. Part 2: As an offshore holding cell for border jumpers awaiting thier hearing with ICE. PR and every nation in Central America has ocean ports for the hearing aftermath. It's technically US territory......they may be worthless and socialist but they have utilty.

 

That place is a 3rd world ****hole and that's not anyone's fault but their own. Screw the Ricans.

 

In case anyone thinks me a racist, I will say I served with more than a few PRs and they were great Marines and later I served with great ones in the Army. I don't dislike them all that much, but I do think it's time to set them free. Let them make their own country and give them back their culture. It'd be best.

Probably for us rather than them though. But they deserve the right to sink or swim.

 

But how would you feel if the federal government of the United States cut you and your whole state off?? No more funding, no citizenship, no help during emergencies no more pensions, no more healthcare, you just have to sink or swim on your own. Would you consider that being "set free?" My guess is no.

Again, I'm not arguing the point, but it just seems very hypocritical of many here to advocate that PR just be left to fend for themselves after such an event, when if it was their home state they would be standing in line at the FEMA office begging for help for their families, and don't let them tell you otherwise.

 

Puerto Rico is a territory. Their people are Nationals, not citizens. There is a difference.

Puerto Rico has failed themselves.

Give a man a fish or teach him to fish.

 

The libs here all give themselves away by crying "give" while the sane among us say "teach".