Believes Puerto Rico Story Was Inaccurate

To the Editor:
I believe that the information in the Jan. 29 article “Puerto Rico Statehood? Cape Residents Share Mixed Views over Island’s Future” lacks accuracy and has a lot of disinformation. The first bit of disinformation is that past referenda has resulted in support of the status quo. This is simply not true.
The past general election (which is also referendum) with the most participation of constituents in Puerto Rico’s history, resulted in a defeat of the current status quo. The referenda had two questions. The first was ‘Do you wanted to remain with the current territorial status, yes? or no?’ The NO vote won (53.97 percent). Clearly this means that people in Puerto Rico reject the status quo, there is no question about it.
The second question was, ‘If Puerto Rico changes the current status, which option would you choose?’ 61 percent of voters voted for statehood. There is a controversy that if you count the ballots that were cast ‘blank’ then statehood did not win. This is also not true. If you add the blank ballots to the total number of votes (you can’t arbitrarily add the blank ballots to any of the options, statistically you could add them in equal proportions to the other options but that would just give you the same result) you would see that statehood still wins by a large margin. Statehood would have 44 percent and the nearest contender has 26 percent. If you do referendum with four options, 44 percent can be considered a majority.
The article quotes two people, neither of which are current residents. It would be a much better article if real, born, raised and living on the island were interviewed.
The article also mentions we do not pay federal taxes. We do not pay federal income tax, but we do pay Social Security and Medicare in the same amount as every other U.S. citizen. Federal government employees do pay income tax as well. Yet, when people retire, even though they pay the same amount in Medicare and Social Security, they don’t even get half the benefits.
Let us take this a step further… imagine a woman, blonde hair, blue eyes, Irish and English heritage, has worked all her life in a full fledged state of the union. She paid all her taxes, Social Security, and Medicare. She turns 65 and decides to move to Puerto Rico. Guess what? She loses half her benefits, just for moving. That is the reality of our current status.
U.S. citizens living in Puerto Rico may not pay federal income tax, but we are heavily taxed in so many other ways. Fuel is taxed, imports are taxed, sales are taxed, services are taxed, electricity is the most expensive in the country, utilities are more expensive than any other state as well. A $19,000 car will at least cost you $25,500 because of taxes.
This is the reason people are fleeing the island. If this was paradise and the current status was really the best of both worlds then why are people leaving en masse? The whole best of both worlds argument holds absolutely no water and people need to understand this. The article would have been a good way of conveying this reality. The only thing good about the current status is that it allows us to move to the mainland without green cards.
Statehood for Puerto Rico is not about money or bonds or more benefits. Statehood is about equal rights. If I go to war, I should be able to vote for the warmonger. If there is a law that affects me I should have representation in Congress with a say in what laws get or do not get passed. This is about a territory of the U.S. that lives under the illusion of democracy, but in the end it is just a Third World country where governments get rich with the benefactors’ money.
Puerto Rico’s political status is very complicated – the fact that we are American citizens since birth makes it even more complicated.
Writer’s Response:
Thank you for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and lengthy response.
The status quo has not changed. Puerto Rico is not an independent country and it is not a state. It is virtually still what it has been since it became a territory of the United States. I did not go into some of the more technical aspects of the vote because it was a newspaper article and the essential information was correct as previously referenced. That being stated, I appreciate your contribution of additional information. I wish I had known you before I wrote the article. I am sure it would have been even better.
The tax referred to was the Federal Income Tax. Every locality has its own tax issues and that was not the focus of the article.
You can be sure I will contact you when matters Puerto Rican arise.
Helen McCaffrey