Misfire on Puerto Rico.

NEW YORK, MARCH 6

The Honorable Don Young from Alaska should be invited to spend more time in his home state, on matters that concern his home state, and maybe figure out a way to sell igloos to Puerto Rico, with which he is so concerned these days. Mr. Young worked four hard years to get a bill passed by the House of Representatives, succeeding the other day by a margin of one (1) vote. The bill? It is slightly complicated, but the long and short of it is that we are to spend $10 million to force a referendum on Puerto Rico to push it toward statehood. The cost of that poll is the analogue of being sent out to cut a rod with which to be switched. Why on earth should the Congress of the United States plead with Puerto Rico to become the 51st state?

Now the good news is that the Senate almost certainly will not act on anything so halfhearted as a 209 - 208 vote in the House (177 Republicans opposed, 31 Democrats opposed). People who have a burning curiosity to know how the Puerto Ricans would react to such a poll can satisfy it by picking up a copy of the World Almanac. A poll was taken in 1993, and 48 per cent of Puerto Ricans voted to continue as a commonwealth nation, 46 per cent voted for statehood, the balance for independence. Nor does the vote by the House bind future Congresses if ever a petition for annexation were formally to be filed. At that point, Congress would face the problem afresh, as a constitutional matter, although there would be a psychological overhang tracing to the vote on March 4. It isn't nice to invite Suzy to apply to join the Debutante Ball and then to turn her down when she does apply.

We are talking about an island population of 3.8 million people, plus 2.7 million who live in the United States, 250,000 of them in Florida. The average annual income in Puerto Rico is $7,900, which is less than one-half the average in Mississippi, the poorest state in the Union. Sixty per cent of Puerto Ricans receive welfare payments from Washington. We spend $10 billion a year on Puerto Rico, net, and if statehood were to come, the figure is estimated to rise to $14 billion. Why should this be, inasmuch as if Puerto Rico were a state, normal tax laws would apply? Because if Puerto Rico did pay taxes, the estimate is that these would bring in $49 million, which is a very small percentage of $14 billion (one thousand four hundred million).

But for the big booming United States of America, that isn't a crazy amount of money, is it? The cost of seven B2s. But very different points should be considered, and these have to do with the cultural question.

In the United Nations, the Soviet bloc, during Evil Empire days, regularly denounced the United States for its colonialist policies, citing Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as oppressed sites of American imperialism. In 1973, serving as public member in the General Assembly, I had the duty to remind the Soviets and their satellites that Puerto Rico regularly opted for a continuation of its current status, with an infinitesimally small vote for independence. The native language in Puerto Rico is -- and, barring such an occupation as Spain imposed on Aztecland in the sixteenth century, will continue to be -- Spanish. Seventy-five per cent of Puerto Ricans speak only Spanish, and, with a few exceptions, school courses are taught in Spanish. Those who believe in a single national language hope to make progress against the fatalistic bilingualism that cripples so many young Hispanics in American schools. It would be a body blow to that reform movement to ratify constitutionally the annexation of an alien culture. A suggested amendment to the House bill that would have required Puerto Rico (somehow) to become English-speaking was shot down, in part because the White House let out word that Mr. Clinton would veto the bill if it arrived on his desk with such a provision in it. It is a pity that Newt Gingrich joined Dick Gephardt in promoting a movement which the Puerto Rican people themselves have rejected.