In his address from the Michigan Capitol on Wednesday evening, the governor championed the Legislature closing the budget deficit, reigning in spending and creating an environment for job growth.

While the speech was absent of bold, new initiatives, the governor took credit for a recently lowered unemployment rate and state government surplus.

“We are building Michigan’s image as a great place to do business,” Snyder said. “2011 was a year to attack our legacy problems.”

Snyder stressed the need to align Michigan skilled workers — particularly youth — with careers in state.

“Our greatest asset is our talent, our people,” Snyder said.

The governor cited the latest numbers showing the state’s unemployment has dropped from 11.1 percent to 9.3 percent.

Much like the State of the Union Address for the President, the annual State of the State speech gives Michigan’s governor a spotlight to outline his agenda for the coming year.

It also can hint certain aspects of the governor’s budget proposal, which largely can dictate funding for certain interests such as higher education. Snyder previously announced he plans to unveil his latest proposal on Feb. 9.

The governor just briefly touched on the issue of higher education, stating that the state is improving, but he said there still is an unacceptably low college readiness rate, which increased from 16 percent to 17 percent in 2011.

“This is unacceptable,” Snyder said. “We need to be 100 percent college and career ready for our young people.”

Almost exclusively focusing on K-12 in regard to education, he made no reference to Senate Democrats new 2020 initiative — a plan unveiled last week that would provide nearly free college to in-state students who attended Kindergarten through 12th grade in Michigan.

State Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, said she was disappointed with the governor’s speech for its lack of a “bold or dramatic” statement.

“People are left out of the equation,” she said

State Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing, said the address was subpar, as the governor didn’t focus on the need to improve the state’s education system.

“It wasn’t uplifting for the people,” Meadows said, adding most of the advances such as the decrease in unemployment were a result of policies left over from the Granholm administration. “If anything was the hallmark of 2011, it was a lack of cooperation.”

The start of Snyder’s tenure has been marked with successes and controversies.

As a freshman governor, he accomplished a great deal of his agenda with the help of a large Republican majority in both the House and Senate, passing 323 laws in 2011.

One of Snyder’s hallmark accomplishments was getting rid of the Michigan Business Tax and replacing it with a flat 6 percent corporate business tax, which translated to a roughly $1.7 billion tax break for businesses. Snyder and other Republicans have said the move will help cut the red tape binding the private sector and make the state more competitive.

In his speech, Snyder championed the change.

“The Michigan Business Tax was just plain dumb,” he said.

Democrats decried the cut’s replacement with a new tax on retirement pension and slashes to education — which included a 15 percent cut in state universities, a move which inspired the MSU board of Trustees to raise tuition 6.9 percent, although some legislators argued the actual cost came out as high as 9.4 percent.

Snyder also defended the controversial emergency financial manager law, which allows the governor to effectively dissolve distressed local governments and place an emergency manager in power in their stead.

“There were critical problems — the new law is helping,” Snyder said.

In March, 2011 the new law sparked large protests on the Capitol lawn. And the controversy is being resurrected again — more than 1,000 protesters, the Detroit Free Press reported, descended on Snyder’s Ann Arbor neighborhood Monday to protest the law.

Consistently calling for greater efficiency in government, Snyder has had some victories praised by both sides. He was able to adopt a two-year budget vision, which he said will help the state have a longer sight down its fiscal road. Last year’s budget was adopted before the governor’s May 31 goal — earlier than it’s been in years.

State Sen. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, praised the governor for staying positive in his speech, marking last year’s progresses and ways to branch off of last year’s initiatives.

Jones said Snyder’s idea of implementing better government continues to bode well for the state, especially after Michigan’s unemployment rate dropped to 9.3 percent, the lowest in three years.

MSU College Democrats President Joe Duffy said Snyder has compared Michigan to a family that has to make sacrifices but was concerned that the sacrifices seemed to be targeted at pensions, education and welfare.

Duffy said he would like to see the governor raise standards of education in the state and provide more aggressive support for K-12 schools. But the governor’s cuts to school funding and teacher layoffs have prevented that, he said.

Staff reporter Rachel Jackson contributed to this report.