“When chinese think about America, they think about the American dream. If you have a dream, it can come true”. This the answer for a question a chinese woman, living in Shanghai was asked.

What was being asked was what she thinks when she hears the word America. Looks like she has positive thoughts about this country. Then theres others who just don’t feel the same. Now a thought of a Berlin woman; “Many think that Americans are dumb, mostly eat fast food and are very patriotic”. Seems like these two women have completely different views. To me I feel that the U.S. is the place you would want to be. There's opportunity and many more privileges than some other countries. As the Berlin woman said before, a lot of Americans are patriotic and yes we do take pride in our country. Right now everything seems to be going pretty smooth. Everything is being taken care of but theres some things being put on the back burner. One of those things happen to be Puerto Rico.

So here's the deal with Puerto Rico. For years there has been talk about Puerto Rico becoming a state. What's making this so difficulty is money. Puerto rico is in some serious trouble. This island has more than $70 billion dollars in debt. Not to mention 11.8% unemployment rate and 45% of the population is in poverty.  The U.S. congress is in charge of this territory financially. It says in the constitution that the government has full responsibility for the island. So why have they been put this dilemma off? And why have they been putting it of for so long? Now let's talk about how this whole crisis started in the first place. The U.S. government use to give the island tax breaks to operating corporations. This resulted in a lot of business on the island. That is until one day in 2006 when congress stopped giving them the tax breaks. This hurt businesses and Puerto Rico’s economy went into a downward spiral. People started leaving the island, therefore there was less people paying taxes. Less tax payers equals less money and the island wasn’t paying for as much public services. Now even more people left. About 400,000 people have left over the past 10 years.

Another issue was the government spending more than it should've. All states in the U.S. are required to keep balanced budgets throughout the year. Puerto Rico didn’t do this. They took advantage of being a territory not a state says an article from CNN. An article from New York Times states that Puerto Rico will stay in trouble for quite a few years due to their borrowing of money in an effort to keep their economy floating.

So what can we do to solve this? Finding the money won’t be easy nor will this happen in a short amount of time.  Here's a possible fix. First the island will obviously have to let them access some sort of bankruptcy. If the island was added to the union, it would take money from all the states.

It would raise taxes all across the country but it would also take money from the states as well. So would all or the majority of the state's support this? It would take quite a few years, so the states probably wouldn’t enjoy having so much money taken from them. If congress doesn’t help and step out now then a huge taxpayer bailout is the most likely outcome. An article from the National Review states that a PROMESA is the best option. PROMESA stands for Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act. What this is is a control board thats similar to the ones that help New York City and Washington D.C., it will be created under the legislation. This board would be responsible for finding the depth of this situation, producing financial statements and also approving budgets. Now here's the best part, this would ensure that the crisis would be addressed without spending a penny of taxpayer money. If this doesn’t work as well as planned, then the board could recommend a debt restructuring by the federal courts. This bill is not considered a bailout. Without PROMESA things will continue to go down hill.

I as well think PROMESA is the best option. Everyday this situation gets worse. We need to stop putting off this crisis and take charge of it. So is Puerto Rico better off becoming a state? Maybe it is, maybe it's not. PROMESA saves so much more money and the states won’t have so much taken away. So will Puerto Rico get out of this devastating crisis and will the U.S. someday have 51 states?