By Rich Studley, President & CEO and Jim Holcomb, Senior Vice President, Business Advocacy & Associate General Counsel

December is a good time to look back over the past 12 months and to look ahead to 2012.

At the start of 2011, Michigan Chamber Board Chair Jeff Ammon reported to Chamber members: "Now is the time to be optimistic about Michigan's future." As 2011 draws to a close, we are pleased to report that Jeff's positive outlook was well-founded. Twelve months ago, Michigan's new governor and new legislative leaders arrived in Lansing with state government facing two big deficits: a budget deficit and an equally serious leadership deficit. 

The good news from Lansing is that Gov. Rick Snyder, Lt. Governor Brian Calley, Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville and Speaker of the House Jase Bolger have worked closely together to provide strong leadership with a clear focus on reinventing Michigan and creating a business climate that encourages job creation. Over the past 12 months, the Snyder/Calley Administration and pro-reform lawmakers in both houses have repeatedly demonstrated a determination to be bold and go fast to tackle many of the economic challenges facing our state.  

In his first State of the State address, Gov. Snyder said he would take decisive action to reinvent Michigan and would set clear, measureable goals for state government in five key areas: economic strength; health and education; value for money government; quality of life; and public safety. To measure state government's progress, we encourage you to visit www.michigan.gov and take a look at the Michigan Dashboard. 

Although we still have a long way to go to restore Michigan's economic strength, the Dashboard shows four out of five performance keys (monthly unemployment rate; real gross domestic product; percent of structurally deficit bridges; and real personal income per capita) have improved over the prior year.

The Michigan Chamber's lobbying team has been aggressively representing your interests at the Capitol and we are proud of the accomplishments we have achieved thus far in this session, including reforms to Michigan's workers' compensation and unemployment insurance laws and repeal of the MBT, in addition to other tax issues. (Click on the above links to watch videos of Chamber lobbyists discussing these issues.) As with any endeavor, there are always a few setbacks, and the legislative process is no different. But taken as a whole, this has been a tremendously productive session for Chamber members.

Included with this 2011 year-end wrap-up is a status report on many of the key pieces of legislation that we have been working on over the past several months. This updated listing is not all inclusive, but rather highlighted issues reflected in the Chamber legislative priorities for 2011-2012.

Generally speaking, 2011 was a good year - not a great year, but better than 2010. Although recovery is uneven, both the state and national economy have started to slowly improve. On a more positive note, in Lansing, the governor and pro-reform lawmakers took action and made substantial progress toward reinventing Michigan. The tough decisions that legislators and the administration are making are already paying dividends: a new business tax and fiscally sound state budget have been passed; rating agencies improved Michigan's outlook; state revenues are coming in much stronger than expected; and unemployment is at the lowest it's been in three years. Several key issues, including regulatory reform, personal property tax relief and transportation investment will carry over to 2012.

We are optimistic about Michigan's future and we will continue leading businesses to move Michigan forward. The first half of next year also offers a window of opportunity to finish work on some key issues before state lawmakers shift their focus to the August primary and November general election, but we will report more on that in the new year.

On behalf of the entire Michigan Chamber staff, we wish all of you a happy, healthy and safe holiday season.