The party is over By Antonio M. Longo May 2, 2006

In your editorial "Puerto Rico and statehood" (Sunday) you wonder why Republican Washington is disenchanted with Puerto Rico's commonwealth status and is "strangely flirting with Puerto Rican statehood" while financial chaos is unfolding in San Juan because of a $738 million deficit in the commonwealth budget.

The answer is clear: Republicans have correctly identified commonwealth status as the root of this financial disaster. Puerto Rico can no longer depend on the largess of the federal government that existed during the Cold War. The party is over.

The people of Puerto Rico also are increasingly aware of their need to assume the full responsibilities of U.S. citizenship in order to share in all of its benefits. Statehood will give Puerto Rico the political stability needed to attract investors, provide real jobs and thus end its dependence on federal government handouts. Furthermore, history points to the fact that the economy of all of our previous territories had an accelerated improvement by converging into the national economy through statehood.

Your editors ignore that Puerto Rico is represented in Congress by one non-voting representative, the very capable Luis Fortuno who, contrary to your predictions of a solid Democratic 51st state, happens to be a conservative Republican highly regarded by our congressional GOP leadership.

Republicans are for statehood for the right reasons. Democracy requires that we end the 108-year history of colonialism in Puerto Rico and allow this disenfranchised U.S. territory the full political power of first-class U.S. citizenship.

ANTONIO M. LONGO
Alexandria