We are tired and increasingly upset to have to plead and beg for equal terms in Federal grants for education for our children.

Yes, we are tired and increasingly upset by being denied the right to vote for our President, and the right to elect two Senators and Members of Congress that we would be entitled to as a state.

Yes, we must stop begging for equality and demand it loud and clear and belligerently, if need be.

To me, that is atrocious. It is unacceptable.

My bill, which has 108 co-sponsors--including me, 109--basically has a two-step process.

Yes, the permanent solution to Puerto Rico's economic problems, social problems, is equal rights, is equality.

How can Congress raise the issue of our non-payment of Federal income taxes when you know that we don't have the power to impose Federal income taxes on income earned in Puerto Rico?

Our Nation is being ridiculed for its hypocrisy in spending billions of dollars and putting its young men and women in harm's way to bring democracy to people who don't want it or don't understand it, while at the same time they deny…

Whether we demand equality or not, it is the Congress and the President's duty, as leaders of the world's greatest democracy, to put an end to this inequality and denial to participate in our Nation's democracy.

It is way past the time when Congress and the President should have put an end to our disenfranchisement and to our being denied equal opportunities under the laws of our Nation.

The solid majority vote for statehood in 2012 cannot be ignored.