Whatever the reason, I think this is a good thing.

“Let’s sprinkle a few billion dollars into each important senator’s state so they can’t shutter our operation.”

Right, and also - did they really "commit", at least in the "pledge" or "binding promise" sense of the word? I think "commit" might be too strong of a word. Maybe "plans to" would be better.

They can announce this now and change their mind as they please, right? I'm not sure about Apple's track record on things like this, they may be good, but they could just slowly pull or decrease funding, and we probably won't even hear about it in the future, or am I missing something?

"Spread money around. Get behind 'job-creation,' 'artisanal,' and 'locally-made.'"

Timing is a wee bit suspicious isn’t it.

It's a forever on-going negotiation.