Finally, it may be dawning on those who have been running the show in Lansing that our the state is facing an enormous crisis that will require far, far more than “business as usual” solutions.

Lt. Governor John Cherry told me he's set up a commission to look at the entire function and structure of state government. Although it's yet not clear who’s on the commission or when it will issue a final report, Cherry obviously is thinking big:

"The organization of Michigan's government was set more than 50 years ago. Any car that’s 50 years old isn’t up to date, and neither is Michigan's government."

Amen to that. In the meantime, there is serious talk about a much-needed, entirely new approach to Michigan's tax structure. The Michigan Business Tax was adopted soon before the jury-rigged budget deal in 2007, but the MBT was soon being severely criticized as just as complex, clunky, and hard to understand as the Single Business Tax it replaced. Whatever remaining good it might have done was then erased by the 20 percent surcharge that was slapped on top of it, as a last-minute move to balance the budget.

That outraged much of the business community, rightfully so. It's now clear to everyone that Michigan's tax structure is unsustainable the way it is. It’s also very unfair to certain kinds of businesses, many of which have seen their tax bill double or triple. And it certainly does not pass the "certainty test."

All businesses have one thing in common: The need to be able to reliably estimate their certain costs, as far as possible. When the legislature constantly changes the tax structure, businesses are bound to find this continued uncertainty about taxes unacceptable. Some may well "vote with their feet," by moving out of state.

Now there are loud calls for wholesale tax reform. The question is, how to do that? Maybe we need a constitutional amendment establishing a graduated income tax, which might be nice if some legislative geniuses could figure out a way to keep wealthy people from moving out of the state upon enactment. Maybe it's broadening the sales tax base to include services and reducing the 6 percent rate.

Whatever the solution, House Speaker Andy Dillon (D-Redford) has been talking for months about putting something "far-reaching" on the ballot next year. Whatever that something is, lawmakers need to keep in mind that there are two vitally important parts to any fair-minded plan for tax and budget reforms.

First, they must result in getting our financial house in order. For the past seven years, Michigan's General Fund budget has suffered from a chronic structural imbalance of more than $1 billion. For the past seven years, both political parties have been wholly complicit in resorting to short-term gimmicks to plug the whole, most recently using close to $ 1 billion in federal stimulus money that should have been invested for longer-term purposes.

Second, regardless of what we do, we must bring what the state takes in into alignment with what it spends, whether by reducing spending and costs, increasing revenues, or both.

But while getting our financial house in order is necessary for our future financial prosperity, it is not sufficient. Wars aren't won by brilliant evacuations. Quite simply, we must develop a long-term proactive strategy for the survival and prosperity of Michigan, and then tailor both taxing and spending to that strategy.

To understand why, look at any company. To survive, it may be necessary to cut costs. But merely cutting costs will not make a company thrive. To do that, it needs to identify its competitive assets, invest in them, and arrive at a strategy that uses those assets to bring new products to market and increase profitability.

For Michigan to prosper, it's vital that we identify our durable, distinctive competitive resources, and invest in them in a way that fits an agreed-upon, overall competitive strategy.

Time after time, Michigan citizens have told us at the Center for Michigan that our assets include our magnificent environment of woods and waters, and the quality of life it’s possible to lead in our great state. They also focus on the institutions that invest in our stock of human capital: Our great universities and our schools.

But with this well-known, what have our leaders been doing? Nothing that makes any sense. They misallocate our resources. Michigan leads the nation in cutting support for higher education. We now spend more on warehousing felons in our state’s prisons than on public colleges and universities. We slash spending for the Department of Natural Resources and close parks.

Now, we are trying to eliminate the pittance we spend on arts and culture and on support for livable, exciting communities.

The problem is not that we spend too much, if we do. The problem is that we don't have a vision. There is a wholesale disconnect between what we are doing and what we should be doing — if we had a tough-minded competitive strategy aimed at the future.

Big plans to change the structure of government and big talk about making big changes in our tax structure aren‘t enough. You can't get anywhere if you don't know where you are trying to go.

What we need to do instead is to start by working out what our competitive strategy ought to be. Once we agree on that, we need to tailor our taxing and spending practices into an alignment with an investment strategy that makes the most of Michigan’s assets.

The Center for Michigan has been holding community conversations around the state for the past 18 months. Those discussions have been calling forth a shared vision for our state's competitive future and calling for action plans to achieve it.

Rather than listen to the narrow claims of innumerable special interests, a strategy that has helped drive us into our current ditch, leaders in Lansing would do much better to listen to the emerging common ground agenda our citizens have for Michigan’s future.