So pledge and then do it anyway. They deserve nothing. Make them a promise, break it, and give them the finger. That has been the Republican way the past 4 years. Give it back.
If they can do that, they can shitcan the filibuster right now.
Edit: Or, I guess, maybe not? It’s a chicken and egg problem isn’t it?
So, the GOP is basically admitting they intend to obstruct as much work as they possibly can for the next two years, and they’re asking for the tools to do so, and threatening to obstruct up-front if they don’t get those tools?
Yes. They call this the normal order or minority rights or some such lofty-sounding thing.
Daagar
1993
But hey, at least we had yesterday, right?
Well, I predict the Democrats will roll right over. Hell, maybe as a courtesy they’ll just vote down their own bills, just to make sure no one in the GOP gets upset. Unity!
Dejin
1998
Hmm, 52.34% voting yes, isn’t exactly a resounding level of support. Is there some downside to becoming a state I’m not seeing here such that the other 47.6% really don’t want to do it? I would have thought it would be almost all “win”, you get better representation and access to more resources. What’s the downside?
For PR, becoming a state in a country where most of the residents at home don’t speak the language, where a not-insignificant number of citizens of the country have a prejudice against your residents, and a country which rather famously did the “I don’t know her” when the island was ravaged by a hurricane two years ago. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if for many Puerto Ricans, full independence and sovereignty didn’t feel like a more ideal choice.
Not to mention centuries of violent, oppressive colonialism, rampant cronyism and corruption from mainland corporations and politicians, destruction of natural resources, violent put-downs of student protests, and instigating almost Native-American-reservation-level bad dietary changes in the population via agricultural fuckery. . .
Dejin
2001
It just seems like all this stuff is less likely to happen if they were a state. They’ll be harder to ignore or mistreat if they have two Senators and Electoral College votes.
Sure, but you’re dealing with 120+ years of accumulated, and very justified, resentment, fear, and dubiousness – we’ve fucked them over after so many promises to do better, in so many ways, why would this one be any different?
Aleck
2003
Plus the PR referendum was something of an artificial choice.
Vote yes to seek to become a state.
Vote no to seek independence from the United States or some new kind of association.
What’s missing there? Oh, right, the status quo (which ain’t great, but is definitely a real choice). The wikipedia article on PR statehood referenda seems to be pretty good – basically, there’s definitely a movement towards statehood, but it’s hardly a huge majority (yet). That said, there’s literally nothing PR can do to force the rest of the US to admit them as a state.
Well not having to pay Federal Income tax on income earned in PR is sort of big deal to a lot of folks.
Dejin
2005
Wow, I had no idea people in US territories didn’t pay US Income Tax. That definitely is a very big deal.
The flip side though is if they aren’t paying US income tax, I don’t feel as guilty that they weren’t as well supported post hurricane as they should have been. Do Puerto Rican corporations pay US taxes? I mean if they aren’t paying any US taxes at all, they shouldn’t really expect US support when things go badly.
The rules on corporate taxes in Puerto Rico are way above my pay grade. Suffice to say there are lots of different carve outs to different industries.
PR is closer to the US mainland than Hawaii. Spanish may be the native tongue, but a heckuva lot of PRs speak English. They teach in Spanish there but English as a second language is required in PR.
Tman
2008
When I joined Intel in '94 we had a major board manufacturing in Puerto Rico. Many other manufacturers were there. At the same time, I understand the US navy used their coastline as a naval bombardment area and they wanted us to stop and I think voted on it.
But when we stopped, our government retribution was to pul the tax loopholes that made manufacturing there profitable. Every manufacture left. We were so petty as a country for removing the tax loophole because we can’t bomb their reefs.
So like @ArmandoPenblade states, we have fucked them over repeatedly, and I can understand any resentment they harbor towards us.
