Hightower Lowdown

Only five years ago, political poobahs in North Carolina were crowing, laughing, and slapping each other's backs. We won, they hooted!

Won what? The national bidding war among various states to bribe Dell, the computer giant, to build its new assembly plant on their turf. By putting up about $318 million in tax giveaways, cash, grants, and other freebies, North Carolina "won," and in October 2006, there was a grand opening of the $7 million Dell plant in Winston-Salem. The future was bright.

But, uh-oh, a mere four years and two days after that ribbon cutting, Dell announced last month that it was cutting out for Asia, closing the plant, discarding the 905 people who worked there, and kissing off North Carolina.

The political poobahs who so happily threw the public's money at Dell now insist that they drove a hard bargain with the slippery giant. The governor rushed out to declare that the deal included iron-clad clawback provisions. "We made it very clear to them," she said, that if they left, "every red cent of incentives money had to come back."

Some of it will, says Dell, but around $9 million of state money spent to widen roads and upgrade interchanges is not expected to be repaid, nor worker training and hiring services that cost about $5 million, and $3 million in tax breaks that Dell already pocketed.

One state official claims that while their jobs are gone, workers still benefited from the training they received. Sure-- as long as they're willing to move to China to get a job. Dell has now moved all computer manufacturing offshore.