The cure for Puerto Rico is independence

 

Since 2010, Puerto Rico has lost almost twice as many people to migration to the U.S. mainland than in all of the 1980s and ’90s. Such an exodus might come as a surprise to some.

 But Puerto Ricans have very good reasons for leaving the Caribbean island and its beautiful beaches for the cold weather and concrete jungles of Chicago or New York City. High unemployment, cuts in education funding, high rates of HIV infection and dependency on welfare programs have convinced more and more islanders to look northward.

The financially troubled island now says it is unable to pay an estimated $72 billion debt, casting a pall on bond markets and pension funds.

On the surface, Puerto Rico’s debt crisis is one of run-away spending on public welfare, with a diminishing small tax and economic base to support it.
However, the island’s troubles are also tied to its commonwealth status: Puerto Rico is part of the United States but it lacks the local autonomy afforded to other U.S. states and electoral representation in Congress.

It is finally time for Puerto Rico to break free.

Independence would allow Puerto Ricans to directly address their economic woes, but, perhaps more important, it will grant the island’s 3.5 million inhabitants the right to determine their own destiny.

On July 9,2015 the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston ruled that Puerto Rico couldn’t restructure its own debt. Puerto Rico’s status as a U.S. territory bars the island from requesting bailout funds from other development banks.

Independence, nationalists argue, would allow the commonwealth to make these and other autonomous choices.

Political options for Puerto Rico remain limited. Statehood is still a pipe dream: Republicans in Congress would never allow the 29th largest territory to be a majority non-white, debt-burdened island of Spanish-speakers.

And while previous plebiscites have shown that independence remains unpopular among many Puerto Ricans, activists contend that the deteriorating living conditions on the island will lead to unrest and further influx into the United States.

Congress has largely ignored calls for reconsidering Puerto Rico’s status.

But the deepening political and economic turmoil may now change that. Puerto Rico’s fate is also likely to generate interest in the run up to the 2016 presidential elections.