Frank Kelley and the ACLU don't like it so you know right away that Cox is on the right track.  All he needs now is for Bill Milliken to come out and criticize him and he'll have the unholy Michigan trifecta.  What are you waiting for, "governor?"  Help Cox go for the gold!

Course, what Kelley ignored a decade ago and what the ACLU ignores now are common sense and the rule of law.  It might sound nice and warm and fuzzy to provide legal documents to illegal aliens but we're living in a different world than we were a few years ago.  Not that laws weren't laws back then (ahem, Mr. Kelley).

So props to the AG and the SoS for getting this one right.  And props to the big newspapers in Detroit for hitting the nail on the head on another critical issue facing Michigan today.  Wasteful spending.

OK, I shouldn't get too carried away.  The Detroit News usually gets it right on this sort of subject and if I was being completely honest I'd have to admit that the Ivory Tower really only gets credit for a headline that makes you expect one thing before they deliver another but I was feeling magnanimous.  

Besides, how often are you going to read a FREEP header that says anything like Stop the wasteful spending, and the excuses?  Once in a decade?  

So I'll give credit where credit is due.  Even though one might reasonably expect they're going to be talking about State spending but they pull the old switcheroo and sub in a discussion of Detroit Public Schools graft and corruption instead.  But that's an entirely important subject in and of itself so I can't really complain.

(DPS Super) Calloway, new board President Carla Scott and the rest of the board also need to get basic accounting procedures into place to start shrinking this blob. Each year, someone says DPS will do this; each year, the failure to do it produces a flap over spending. Detroiters have surely seen enough of this little dance; have not Calloway and the board?

If there's a ray of hope here, it's Calloway's arrival, which brought with it a no-nonsense approach to district finance and management, and a refreshing honesty about the sorry state of the district. Calloway admitted in December that her staff finds new financial horrors every day, and that she must build basic systems of accounting from the ground up.

Together with the board, she needs to ensure that this happens before next fall, when another predictable scandal will surface if the blob is left untouched.

The blob they're referring to is the million dollars plus that went to pay for trips and catering last year without any names or dates attached to expense reports.  The same thing that had happened the year before.  And probably the year before that and the year before that and the year before that.

Interesting that Detroit and the whole of Wayne County are the pinnacle of Democrat leadership and political control, isn't it?

Meanwhile, one county (and one newspaper) over we're hearing the same sort of discussion on a much larger scale.  The DetNews:

Oakland County officials are among those who expect housing values to stay depressed for the next two years, decreasing county government tax revenues. A presentation by Deputy County Executive Bob Daddow earlier this month noted that declines in home values are expected to cost Oakland County government $5.7 million in 2008, $6.8 million in 2009 and $13.3 million in 2010 from previous estimates.

With the number of new homes under construction in such steep decline, the new taxes to be gained from homes being assessed at their full market value is also falling off, adding to the decline in revenues...

The implications for government are clear, and Bishop summed them up well. "We can't take a breath" in efforts to control spending. That applies to local governments and school districts as well.

We certainly must do a better job of controlling spending.  Especially with Andy Dillon telling us he's planning on raising taxes again after the general election.  Create a program and he'll find a way to fund it with out money.  He and the Governor certainly proved that last year.  Which is why it's a fair and appropriate warning again and again... hold on to your wallets, Granholm and Dillon are coming.