Apple Deal In Trouble??

Holy crap!! As I was getting my cup of coffee this morning at my local 7-11 around 5:20, I happened to read the front page of the Statesman, it said, “Apple deal 'in peril' over delays in approving incentives.” Are you kidding me! I actually had to stop and read it again to make sure I caught that right.

                Ok, Travis County Commissioners Court, what is the big deal? Companies, like Apple, don’t just decide one day to build huge campuses and offer to a city and county, 3600 jobs over a ten year period, without some kind of tax incentives thrown in to sweeten the deal for them, the company. In my research today I did find that Austin apparently strives itself on the ability to get companies to relocate here without offering many incentives. But come on! It’s not like Apple is asking for all that much from Travis County as far as I’m concerned.

                Here is the deal: Apple wants to invest $304 million dollars on a facility here in Austin and in the people of the greater Austin area. Decisions like that are not made lightly and require years of research, development and capital. The total government incentives that Apple is looking for is $21 million from the state’s Texas Enterprise Fund, which is, “A ‘deal closing fund’ that has the flexibility and financial resources to help strengthen the state’s economy”, according to Governor Rick Perry’s site. The deal on the table is also for $8.6 million in tax incentives from the City of Austin, and here is the hang up, the $5.4 – $6.4 million from Travis County. Like I said, not really a drop in the bucket, compared to the total money invested by all of the parties involved and the huge boost in our local economy.

Now, I will play devil’s advocate for a moment and give the “other side” its fair shake. According to the Statesman, “Bill Aleshire, an attorney and former Travis County judge, and Ed Wendler, an Austin-area developer, picked through the county's draft final contract with Apple, pointing to parts of the contract they said will allow Apple to fall short of the requirements by the Commissioners Court. Apple "had it rigged so they could not comply with the contract yet end up with county staff basically renegotiating the terms that they would have to comply with," Aleshire said. "I just thought that was a major flaw. It showed up in several ways in several places." With that being said, I don’t understand why anyone would wait to bring up flaws this late in the game, after the Commissioners Court already gave the deal their blessing back on April 17th.  

Well that’s all the time and room I’m going to give the other side. I thought I should be fair though, and let you the reader, make a decision based on fact, not just my opinions. I am all about corporate expansion and the creation of jobs though. Especially, the entry-level help-desk workers that this deal promises to employ and not to mention all the trades jobs this kind of a deal brings to an economy. Everyone has to start somewhere, and Apple is saying that the jobs will pay around $34,000 a year. Not bad, especially when you are one of the approximately 7% among our unemployed. Those wages will pour so much more money back into this economy then Apple could ever take out.

  I’m also for the tax breaks and incentives that a government must provide, especially in this day and age, to those companies that want to expand. Apple could go anywhere they want, they are choosing here, I would hate to hear that the deal fell through based on a $5-6 million question that no one really has the answer to. If the attorneys for both sides can come to an agreement that works for everyone, then great! But let us not lose the deal over attorney word jockeying.

Update and Fellow Blogger Link

    Here we are again, looking to find the purpose and meaning behind the politicians and the laws that they pass.

    Before I start another discussion, I just want to update everybody on  the current state of the Planned Parenthood debate that I last posted. According to the dailycaller.com, "The organization filed a lawsuit against the Texas Health and Human Services Commission in federal court this week, seeking to prevent enforcement of a new rule that excludes their affiliates from participating in the state’s Women’s Health Program...Unless the lawsuit is successful, under the new rule, on April 30, Planned Parenthood will no longer be able to participate in the program." So, for all of the like-minded people out there, lets hope that the judge assigned to this case will be impartial and ethical.

    As I was reading through most of my fellow classmates blog entries, I came across a discussion about the WIC program here in Texas, and how even that program is in jeopardy of losing funding. Surprisingly I had not read anything about this current matter; also I found it interesting how it parallels the same problems that Planned Parenthood is having. If you would like to read the entire post please click on the link, left of the blue cognizance blog, M. Kelly is the author, and she has definitely brought yet another public funding issue to light. This is just another example of why I can't in good faith, stand beside my fellow Republicans on a situation like this.

    What is going on in this state? Have the right-wing conservatives lost their minds? There is no way that there is not enough money "just lying around" to fund these beneficial programs for the most needy in the state. Is it not our job, our obligation as Americans, and certainly as Texans, to provide the indigent, a very simple and basic health care need? Especially, when it saves us all money in the long run. All of this, in the wake of a national unemployment rate that is lowering and the city of Austin becoming one of the fastest growing job markets in the country. There should be more than enough money to fund whatever "WE THE PEOPLE" want to fund. I believe that the lawmakers forget that they work for us!

    Until next time...

Texas Legislature Taking On Obama Administration

This week I’m going to show, any of you that read this, why the title of my blog is “Somewhere to the right of center”, because it is stuff like the following that keeps me in the center of politics and not able to get on board with the right or the left all the way.

            Apparently, the Texas Legislature last summer decided that federal funding need not be spent on any of the programs that the Texas Medicaid Women’s Health Program (TMWHP) provided to low-income women around the state. The Texas Legislature passed the law that bans funding for clinics affiliated with abortion providers, even if it affects services that are not abortions. The Women’s Health Program, “Provides birth control, annual exams [such as pap smears and mammograms] and other services to an estimated 100,000 women across the Lone Star State.” (Fox News.com) The program uses approximately 90% federal funds (about $34 million annually) and the rest comes from the state, which last year was around an additional $7 million, for a total of $41 million.

When the State of Texas passed this law, the Obama administration, I believe, tried to use a scare tactic against the lawmakers and promised to cut all federal funding for the TMWHP. When in actuality, right-wing conservatives, (which is most of the Texas Legislature, and totally Pro-life mind-you), seem to just want Planned Parenthood out of Texas, because it doesn’t fit into their individual political platforms and the moral standings among their co-workers. Of course, in true political fashion, they have no idea how to replace such a program, nor has the governor or legislature come up with the nearly $35 million dollars that will be cut for women’s healthcare from the fed. All that the low income women in Texas have is Governor Perry’s word that he “will not let the program die”. I guess we will have to see what happens in the weeks to come.

Here is where things like this just seem idiotic to me. The Obama Administration made good on their threat, because they say that it is a women’s right to pick the provider that she wants to go to, as long as it is done by a qualified clinic. The Texas Legislature and Governor Perry want Planned Parenthood out of Texas so badly, that they are saying that, it is the states right, under federal law, to determine qualified providers in the program. Again, how does cutting funding for a public program benefit anybody, when in actuality it is hurting the people that need it the most? I truly hate to see the ‘people’ get affected by political games being played out in Washington, DC. Only time will tell the outcome of all of this, so we will have to stand by and play the waiting game to see what side does right for the people and puts their political agendas aside

Local Blog Discussion

                Well here we are again, on our blog. I’m really starting to get into this, since I would consider myself quite an opinionated person.  It sure beats having to argue face to face with my friends, or even more to the detriment of my inner-self,  feeling like I can’t hold a conversation with those around me because they are either un-educated in the topic at hand or they flat out don’t care. Anyway, this has become quite the avenue for me to voice my opinion and read about others that are like-minded.

                The disappointing aspect of this week’s entry is that I could not find anyone to really strongly agree with or disagree. I read through 6 conservative blogs and 4 liberal blogs. Unfortunately, none of them really struck a chord in me. After reading countless articles on all these blog sites, it hit me. Maybe, if I just turn the reading over to you, the blog follower, you can become educated in a matter that you don’t understand; or better yet, learn something about our local politics and government that you did not know about previously. Either way, education can be an amazing thing, let’s just get your mind working…

                I chose to focus my attention on the Conservative Blog, “Lone Star Strong”.  After all the reading I had done, this site seem to be the most positive, and let’s face it, people in general have a grim outlook on the state of the economy and the American lifestyle itself. I really just want to point out the headlines of articles on the blog so that the pessimists out there may see a proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel”.

                The first article is titled, “Perry back to work promoting Texas Business”. The article states that, “Texas is the nation’s next high-tech hub of innovation”. That sounds pretty positive to me. I know where I work, Freescale Semi-conductor, they strive themselves on growing their business and recruiting the best and brightest to carry them into the future.  The next headline is, “Economists: Austin Area to Add 45,000 + New Jobs in Next Two Years”. This outlook comes to us from Angelos Angelou, who is in his 26^th year of reporting Austin’s annual economic forecast.  Apparently, he has only been wrong twice in those 26 years; I wish I could say the same about weather forecasters! Moving on, and I believe I’m just going to put one more headline up here. If you will go to the blog you can read the other five headlines that I’m not going to mention. Although they are positive also, I only have limited time to critique them for you.

                So the last headline that I’m going to point out is, “Texas’ Trillion Dollar Economy Among Nation’s Fastest Growing”. Well that should say it all! That is the wholehearted reason that I moved here to Texas a year-and-a-half ago. I wanted to go where the economy was not in the toilet. Where I could put down roots and see what happens.  A place for my son to graduate high school and a state he could be proud of when someone asked him where he grew up. I know the World isn’t perfect, no one expects it to be, but I have such a swelling of pride when it comes to the United States. I defended her flag and I will be wrapped in it when I die. It is our First Amendment right to speak our minds and do with our lives as we see fit. So please, read into both sides of every story, the truth will be somewhere in between.

The End Of Overnight Camping By Occupy

The editorial that I found for this weeks assignment was featured in the Austin Statesman, on February 6, 2012. Instead of aggressively bashing the movement, which set up “camp” in downtown Austin back on October 6, 2011; it is more an informative piece about the Occupy Wall Street movement and how the people involved, were forced to leave City Hall and were not able to sleep/camp there overnight anymore.

The movement started on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District. Their reasoning was to, “Fight back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to fight back against the richest 1% of people that are writing the rules of an unfair economy that is foreclosing on our future”. (OccupyWallSt.org)

Unfortunately, as the author points out, and I am in total agreement, the people involved in the movement had simply wore out their welcome. In the grand scheme of things, Occupy is no longer able to do what they intended. They brought the discussion of the world financial crisis to the forefront of everybody’s mind, but then had no vision or organization set up to help show the individual taxpayer/voter what they could do to help solve the problems facing the world today. Instead, they put more of a strain on the City of Austin, (as well as hundreds of other cities), and the taxpayers, by costing us around $800,000.00 in maintaining police patrols and cleaning up after them. So I ask, how was that beneficial to their cause?

In conclusion, I feel that, if you are not doing anybody any good, you are costing taxpayer money that we don’t have, you are not organized in your stand and unable to give some kind of guidance or thought provoking discussion on how to fix what you are protesting about, then what good are you actually doing. I think it is time for Occupy to step back and reevaluate their stand and how best the time and resources could be spent. I wholeheartedly believe in the US Constitution and everybody’s First Amendment rights, but at least make a serious effort to make a change in the policy or procedure.

Texas Becomes a Republican State!!

As I was perusing the Internet for this weeks assignment, I came across this great Texas Political History lesson. It was on Texas Public Radio, on a show called, "Texas Matters." It is co-hosted by a husband and wife, that want to bring to the attention of the public, newsworthy items that the main stream media overlooked, or didn't find newsworthy. With the Presidential Primaries taking place, it seems like a good time to reflect and learn something about the past and how every now-and-then there are distict parrellels in history, even in politics. I for one, had thought Texas was always a Republican State, but I found out that it was Democratic for over 100 years prior to the 1980 Presidential Election. Appearently, Ronald Reagan came here in 1976 as a noiminee, but lost to Gerald Ford. Although he lost, it set off what I would call a, "semi-permanent" political swing through-out the State. Two years later, 1978, Texas elected its first Republican Governor, then in 1980, became the leading Republican voting state that it is today.

If for some reason the link doe not work, simply got to TPR, find the "Texas Matters" show with David Martin Davies, dated 02.03.2012, episode 597, segment 4. Its a lot easier then it looks.

Happy Listening!!