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.