Granholm, visibly angry, told reporters that Republicans are stonewalling budget negotiations with extremist views against taxes.

"We need revenues to be able to save our schools," she said. "I'm angry at Senate Republicans for having purely an extremist ideology of never, no way ever, regardless of how it impacts Michigan, will they ever consider revenues. That philosophy is damaging to Michigan."

Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, dismissed Granholm's label as unproductive name-calling. Bishop, in a statement, said the House and Senate have cooperated to erase part of the budget deficit.

"The governor seems intent on derailing the bipartisan progress via her obsession with a massive tax increase on Michigan families," Bishop said. "Republicans and Democrats have both demonstrated in legislation that the current-year deficit can be balanced with cuts."

So let me get this straight.  Opposing taxes is an extremist view, right?  She and all of her supporters throughout Lansing, the op-ed pages and the blogosphere have been saying this for months.  Extremist this.  Radical that.  

But what's the difference between what she'd like us to believe is the Senate Republican position and hers?  She is insisting on a tax hike.  No budging.  No retreat.  No surrender.  She's staked out a position and she refuses to move.  In other words, if the Senate GOP has dug in their heels against tax hikes, well, she's no different.

But you can certainly understand why she's getting upset.  Every day she's being marginalized.  Daniel Howes has a fantastic piece in this morning's Detroit News.

Referencing the Governor he says:

And your speaker, a private equity shark-turned-Democrat, didn't buy it either. Then he and the guys heading the tax policy committee recast a replacement to the Single Business Tax that Republicans, automakers, key chambers of commerce and other business leaders greeted with the kind of respect and qualified consideration that made you look, well, like an outsider.

And your tactic of whipsawing more revenue from the Senate GOP so you can plow it back into the entitlement maw that is Michigan's public schools didn't work. So the answer, just months after magically coming up with $220 more in (pre-election) per-pupil funding, is to take more than half of it back, call the Republicans "extremists" who "won't consider revenues" and bank that the public buys the charade.

Spot on.  Spot freaking on.  Like we've discussed (here and here), this is a "solution" in search of a problem.  The cuts are there.  They've even been passed by one legislative body or the other.  Republicans in the Senate have passed cuts.  Democrats in the House have passed cuts for goodness sake!  They're in conference RIGHT NOW!  

Accept spending cuts and government reforms and you're out of the mess without raising taxes one red cent (and certainly not two pennies).  The money's there.  Stop playing games.  At this point the discussion isn't even about how bad tax hikes would be for the economy.  How they'd put thousands of people out of work (19,000 by one estimate, had the Governor gotten her way on her initial tax hike scheme).  How they'd set Michigan further behind other states and cement our backwater status trailing even Mississippi.  

The governor is holding children hostage right now.  And for no reason.  None.  Is this what passes for leadership in the Democrat party?

Speaking of leadership... this article from the Ludington Daily hit the web yesterday afternoon and having spent the last election cycle working for the man and loving every minute of it I can't help but post their story about Dick DeVos' recent speech to local GOP activists.

(DeVos) leveled his fieriest language and harshest criticism at Gov. Granholm
and the Democratically controlled Michigan House of Representatives.

Michigan, he said, may be the last place in the world where profit and trade are dirty words.
"Fear and blame are a whole lot easier to spread than truth and responsibility," he said. "That was not a happy lesson...."

"I don't understand some of the conversations in Michigan," he said, ripping into a recent story that House Democrats were considering whether to spend $40 million get iPods to Michigan students at a time DeVos said the state is having a difficult time getting books into their hands.
He said Michigan is the only state running a budget deficit. In business, he said, all hiring would stop in such a situation, but a look at State of Michigan "critical" job openings include positions from car washers to gypsy moth trap collectors and horse saliva and urine collectors and a full-time locksmith, adding "Does this make any sense?"

When restructuring a company, he said, one learns there is no single magic bullet. "You do a lot of little things. We seem unwilling to do that."

A couple of paragraphs can really say a lot.  (Of course, if you want to read the rest of his speech, Steve Begnoche at the Daily News gives a pretty extensive play by play at the link above.)

Not only is DeVos on to something when he discusses those "critical" job openings but he hit's the bullseye about doing the little things.  About things adding up.  But until Governor Granholm wakes up and realizes the status quo is killing this state it looks like she'll continue to sing that one single note.  'Tax hikes or I'll get your kids.  Because I'm angry.  Grrrrrr.'