Is there any chance of Puerto Rico becoming a state?

[Badger]

The only arguments against Puerto Rican statehood I've heard that aren't just bigotry:

• If Puerto Rico becomes a state they can't compete in the Miss Universe pageant anymore, which is surprisingly kind of a big deal because they've won it five times (making them the nation with the third-most Miss Universes) and won it twice last decade.
• Puerto Rico has a much lower average income than the contiguous US, so welfare programs would have to cover a lot more people, maybe causing budget issues or something.

And, that's it.

Yeah, but there is a great deal of tax exemptions, both corporate and personal, that attach to PR residency. IIRC a large number of pharmecutical companies have factories there for this reason. I don't know if shutting those loopholes will wholly offset the increased social services cost (does the federal government not largely provide such services to PR already?), but it may not be nearly such a financial obligation as some might fear.

[Badger]

Puerto Ricans will choose between 3 options:

Statehood
Independence
Sovereign Free Associated State

Will 50% choose statehood out of the 3 choices? Seems like the question is set up to avoid any option recieving 50%.

Either way, they should choose Independence. But we've mindfked them so hard that they couldn't bear to be free of us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnWss3y7AUY

It's almost certain that the winning choice, whether statehood or the sovereign etc, will win with greater than 50% of the vote. Independence has struggled to obtain more than 1% of the vote in multiple prior plebesites. It's support is basically limited to professional "fight the power" types who listen to too much Rage Against the Machine.

[Bacon King]

Independence would be a bureaucratic nightmare anyway. Everyone on the island would retain their US Citizenship, which they would then pass on to their kids, etc. I imagine a nation full of people with dual citizenships could run into a variety of issues.