What Puerto Rico gets from U S A :

Europe still has a long way to go before it is as fiscally united as America. It could not contemplate anything like the transfers that America’s federal system allows. Take Virginia, for example. In 2009, according to the Census Bureau, the federal government spent $155.6 billion in this state where the revolutionary war was won. But the Internal Revenue Service collected only $58.6 billion in federal taxes. Virginia, in effect, ran a deficit of $97 billion. Indeed over the 20 years from 1990 to 2009, according to calculations by The Economist, it ran a cumulative deficit of over $590 billion.

That amounts to about 145% of Virginia’s 2009 economic output, similar to the debt-to-GDP ratio of Greece. If America were like the euro area, Virginia would have to bear the burden itself. But as part of a fiscal union, it can rely on others to help.

Virginia is not however the most “indebted” of America’s states, according to these calculations (see chart). That honour falls to New Mexico, which has a 20-year deficit worth over 260% of its GDP. Puerto Rico, which is a territory, rather than a full state, has an even bigger debt ratio.