Federal program and services outlay in Puerto Rico is approximately $10 billion per year.

Instead of generating either unnecessary alarm or a false sense of security regarding these fundamental issues, the best course is to empower people with the truth.

Yet, individuals and corporations in Puerto Rico pay no federal income tax.

If U.S. national sovereignty continues, it is only as a state that Puerto Rico will have permanent 10th Amendment powers over its non-federal affairs, as well as voting power in Congress.

Yet, Puerto Ricos economic convergence and political integration with the rest of the nation is in a state of arrest - even though the island has been within the national borders, political system and customs territory of the U.S. for a century.

After one hundred years of federal rule, the United States House of Representatives has moved to provide for the first meaningful route to self-determination for the Puerto Rican people under our federal system.

As the highest ranking American official in the United Nations organization, I came to understand thoroughly that the national constitutional processes of the member states define the status of territories under their sovereignty.