Invest Michigan! would divert up to $300 million in state pension funds to Michigan businesses that agree to hire more people. The state would recruit other investors for those companies.

The second plan would give $35 million in state tax breaks to businesses in the top 50 growing sectors, based on national reports. Likely to be targeted are industries such as alternative energy, science research and data processing -- businesses that could easily locate elsewhere...

Eligible new businesses would pay no business taxes for one year. Existing businesses that qualify would receive large tax credits.

Those proposals, directly from the Governor's mouth, are an explicit admission that tax breaks work.  Fewer taxes, more jobs.  Period.  We've been saying that here since the launch of the site just about a year ago but economists have been saying that since the inception of taxes, jobs and the free market.  It's not a new reality but it is clearly a reality that Michigan Democrats have done their best to ignore and deny.

It's no wonder many Republicans looked at that portion of the speech and thought the Governor sounded like one of them.  The principle is sound but the problem pops up in the application.

If tax breaks and incentives work and stimulate job growth and job growth leads to increased tax revenues then why raise taxes in the first place and why not grant across the board cuts so that every Michigan business has a chance to grow.  The Governor's proposal is a real nice sounding band-aid solution.  It might stem the bleeding in one area or another but Michigan's economy is shot full of holes.  We need to address the underlying problems and fix the jobs environment, not simply slap a patch here and there.  That sort of thing rarely works, something that continues to fly over the heads of most libs but wasn't lost on the Michigan Chamber.  Freep continues:

Democrats praised her ideas as catalysts for job growth, but Republicans and some business advocates questioned government's ability to mold the economy.

"Any time you put government in direct competition with venture capitalists in the private sector, we would be concerned," said James Holcomb, vice president of business advocacy for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce. "Government doesn't have too good a record of picking winners and losers."

So no, ladies and gentlemen, the Governor did not sound like a conservative on Tuesday night.  She sounded like a woman completely out of touch with economic reality.  But what else is new, right?  Until Michigan either A) gets new leadership or B) bottoms out we'll just have to take solace in the fact that at least now the Democrats are praising conservative principles as "catalysts for job growth" even if they don't understand how and why they work.  

There's a problem that everyone recognizes and understands.  There's a solution that Republicans and Democrats all recognize and understand.  But while the GOP wants to act and to get something done the Democrats continue to stare those economic realities in the face, admit they're real, and then ignore the solution.  

Contrast that with a bit of Republican leadership in Lansing, particularly on this whole drivers-licesnes-for-illegal-aliens issue.  The Associated Press reports:

Cox was asked to rule on whether illegal immigrants should be able to get driver's licenses. Until last week, Michigan was one of the few states where illegals could legally get behind the wheel.

Cox's opinion ended that practice, saying Michigan law prohibits the secretary of state from issuing a driver's license to a nonresident. The opinion said the Legislature stated a clear intent that a resident for purposes of Michigan's vehicle code must be permanent and not temporary or transient.

His decision reversed an early opinion by former Democratic Attorney General Frank Kelley made in 1995. Attorney general opinions are legally binding on state agencies and officers unless reversed by the courts or state law is changed.

Both Land and Cox are Republicans. Land interpreted the Cox opinion to mean immigrants who are here legally -- but aren't permanent residents -- can't get licenses. She has proposed legislation that would change that, allowing legal immigrants who are temporarily in the state to get licenses.

There was a problem... illegal aliens were getting drivers licenses, making their attempts to stay in Michigan illegally infinitely easier.  There was a solution.  Stop giving them licenses.  Mike Cox and Terril Land did what they needed to do and solved the problem.  Now comes a new problem.  Legal aliens can't get licenses but should be able to.  So what's a lawmaker to do?

If we were to follow the Jennifer Granholm leadership model we'd give a speech, talk about how important it is to give legal aliens the ability to drive legally and then we'd propose a solution that lets some legal aliens drive legally but not all legal aliens.  Only the ones that we really liked today and thought could help us earn votes tomorrow.  

The GOP leadership model?  The Senate Republicans will be moving a fix as early as today that addresses the problem at it's root and applies a genuine, across the board solution.  Tackling a problem.  Novel concept in Lansing.  

Novel concept in Detroit too, where, apparently, you can fire police officers to protect a secret affair, lie about that secret affair under oath, settle a lawsuit by charging millions of dollars to the city's credit card to silence those police officers years after the fact and then when you get caught you can just say "I'm sorry" and pretend like nothing even happened.  Time to `get back to work' for the American people... err... the people of the city of Detroit.  Sorry, mixed up my Democrat leaders receiving sexual favors from subordinates on taxpayer time and then lying about it under oath.  Honest mistake.  

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick gave his big "my bad" speech last night and coverage is sort of being done to death but there was one frustrating bit in this morning's Detroit News op-ed.  One frustrating bit other than the fact they're ready to give Hizzoner a pass for committing perjury.  

It was painful to hear the mayor explain his turmoil when discussing the scandal with his wife and children. Any parent can relate. And it wasn't hard to imagine wife and children's pain, especially when Carlita Kilpatrick spoke from the heart during the broadcast.

Any parent can relate?  Maybe I'm just one of those crazy old fashioned guys but I've got to believe there are still parents out there who have never cheated on their spouse.  Who are loving and faithful and entirely unwilling to sacrifice the best things in their life for a moment or two of passing pleasure.  There are parents all across the State of Michigan who have no idea what it would be like to have to have the sort of conversation the News is talking about here and do not, by the grace of God and their own self control, have any frame of reference by which they can relate.  

Heaven help us if I'm wrong. But hey, at the very least this gives us one more example of Democrat "leadership."