State 'hood: bringing Puerto Rico into the Union would in some ways help Puerto Rico, but in no way help the Union

National Review, August 11, 1997 by Jorge Amselle

Bringing Puerto Rico into the Union would in some ways help Puerto Rico, but in no way help the Union.

Mr. Amselle is Communications Director for the Washington-based Center for Equal Opportunity.

It is extremely rare for the Speaker of the House to actively co-sponsor legislation. Yet Speaker Gingrich, Majority Whip Tom DeLay, and 23 other Republican members have signed on to HR-856, which would begin the process to make Puerto Rico our 51st state. Introduced by Rep. Don Young (R., Ark.), the bill would require the island to hold a referendum in 1998 with three options: continued commonwealth, statehood, or independence. The referendum would also be held at least once every ten years until either statehood or independence received a majority vote.

That's a bare majority -- whereas Alaska became a state with the support of 83 per cent of its population; Hawaii, with 94 per cent. Over the years, Puerto Rico has had two referenda on the status question. In 1967 commonwealth status won with a large margin. The second referendum, in 1993, resulted in a vote that was 48.6 per cent for continued commonwealth, 46.3 per cent for statehood, and 4.4 per cent for independence. Since the last two options are the only permanent choices, there is little doubt regarding the eventual result. Once the statehood option succeeds, Congress would be required to vote on statehood every two years until it was approved.

Yet making Puerto Rico a state not only is a monumentally bad idea, but undermines everything the Republican Congress has sought to do. A state of Puerto Rico would have two senators and at least six congressmen, all hostile to a GOP agenda of spending cuts. The fervor of statehood proponents is driven by one thing: cash. Over half the island's population currently qualify for food stamps or other forms of public assistance. Statehood would eliminate current caps on welfare, imposed by Congress, and make the island eligible for $3 billion in additional public assistance. A Puerto Rican state would no longer be exempt from the federal income tax -- but this would actually result in a net loss to the U.S. Treasury, as many islanders would be eligible for cash payments in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit.

When Carlos Romero-Barcelo -- the current congressional delegate for Puerto Rico, former governor, and an ardent supporter of statehood -- titled his 1978 book Statehood Is for the Poor, he wasn't kidding. The bottom line of this small book may be found on page 87: "The State of Puerto Rico will qualify for a great deal of federal aid money. . . . Puerto Rico's per capita contribution to the federal treasury, were we a state, would come to less than that of any other state in the Union. At the same time the per capita benefits we'd reap from federal aid programs would be greater than those of any other state in the Union. On top of all this we'd also have seven or eight Puerto Ricans serving as full voting members of Congress, working up in Washington at all times to help draft and pass new and improved social welfare legislation." Since the House is limited by law to 435 representatives, Puerto Rico's new congressional delegation would also end up diluting the current representation of several states.

Increased welfare is an especially enticing ploy given that Congress last year repealed the Territories and Possessions Corporate Tax Exemptions Act (IRS Section 936), eliminating, with a ten-year transition period, the tax-exempt status of businesses based on the island. Tax exemption for businesses has been one of the strongest reasons to maintain commonwealth status. It is often credited with providing one of every three jobs on the island, which currently suffers from an unemployment rate of close to 20 per cent. Even without a jump in unemployment Puerto Rico would become our poorest state, with half the median income of Mississippi. Statehood would also guarantee U.S. citizenship -- which Puerto Ricans currently have on a statutory basis -- as a permanent birthright.

For many people on the island, however, their greatest concern is maintaining their language and culture. Statehood would serve to create our own tropical Quebec. Over 80 per cent of islanders do not speak or understand English. Puerto Rico may be officially bilingual now, but in reality it is a Spanish-speaking nation, and between 1990 and 1993 Spanish was the only official language. The attitude toward English on the island can be best described as hostile.

When Victor Fajardo, Puerto Rico's education secretary, proposed that English be made the second language of instruction earlier this year, teachers unions protested, calling it cultural suicide. One teacher, Digna Irizarry, told the New York Times, "I will refuse to teach in English." Even Secretary Fajardo was quoted by the Times as saying that "we agree that English will always be the second language of education." According to this same Times article, "fully 90 per cent of the island's 650,000 public-school students lack basic English skills by the time they graduate." The fact is that the top priority of Puerto Rican schools is to teach children Spanish, not English.