LANSING – While most business and community leaders were in agreement with Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s State of the State address on Wednesday, especially its optimistic but somber tone and its focus on helping entrepreneurs, the speech seemed more symbolic than revealing, they said.

They said with her major reforms revealed last Friday and her budget presentation scheduled for the end of the month, the governor’s speech served to pique their interest, but left them with more questions than answers.

Doug Rothwell, president of Business Leaders for Michigan, agreed with the governor’s overall tone in her speech. She did a nice job recapping her accomplishments and bringing the challenges before the state, he said.

“The follow up is the difficult part and make or break for Michigan,” he said. “She announced some good steps Friday, but it’s going to take more than that to get Michigan back on track.”

Rothwell also said that he was glad to hear Granholm encourage an entrepreneurial spirit, but that he wasn’t that impressed with her plan to open up 12 small business center training facilities to about 1,000 prospective entrepreneurs.

“The training doesn’t sound like a very large program, so I’m not sure how many people it would affect,” he said.

But Rob Fowler, president and CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan, was more optimistic, saying it is “really good” to hear that training entrepreneurs has been put on the fast track and that credit unions, the “new kids on the block in business financing” are getting a nod from the state’s leader.

He also noted that while most of the governor’s speech touched on older initiatives, her newer plans largely focus on small businesses and business owners.

“I’m pleased, I’m pleased,” said Fowler, who added that Granholm’s call to give tax incentives to investors that give money to small business start ups is also a good move, since existing “angel tax credits” have been thus far mostly unattainable.

Statements from small business owners provided to the National Federation of Independent Business included this: “She is finally on the right track with reforms, but from what I am told about the deficit coming up she is more than a billion dollars short,” said Aaron Samson, owner of Lush Lawn Incorporated in Grand Blanc. “My business and this state cannot take another tax hike like the one in 2007 if this is all we are going to see in cost-cutting.”

Rothwell said the governor continued what he thinks has been a lingering mistake: focusing too much on the seven sectors of the economy she has targeted for growth, which include clean energy, life sciences, homeland security and defense, advanced manufacturing, film and tourism.

“While we will always have target sectors, it feels like we’ve gone too far with it,” said Rothwell, saying that the governor’s speech didn’t touch on what he thinks is the “fundamental problem” for businesses in the state, which is that the cost of doing business is about 4 percent higher than other comparable states, according to a 2008 benchmarking study commissioned by Business Leaders.

He said while there is much for leaders to change to make the state more economically viable, significantly cutting the Michigan Business Tax is the first place to start, since cutting that tax would decrease taxes compared to other states, making up for what the group says are higher insurance and other costs for small businesses in Michigan than elsewhere.

Rothwell also reiterated his group’s call to add a service tax, which he said would allow a reduction in the MBT to be revenue neutral and fair, since it would probably tax those with more discretionary income to use on services more often.

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