By an interesting coincidence (or possibly not), 26th District Rep. Jan Angel and State Sen. Derek Kilmer have both authored op-eds on these pages in succeeding weeks. And while each correctly identifies job-creation as the top priority for the upcoming legislative session in Olympia, they offer decidedly different roadmaps for getting there.

With the exception of the need to reform unemployment insurance and worker’s compensation regulations, where both seem to agree this is neither the time nor the place to punish employers, Kilmer offers the standard Democratic remedy of spending our way of a recession, while Angel and her fellow Republicans counter that higher taxes and bureaucratic red tape can only delay — if not kill — economic recovery.

Among Kilmer’s other “job-creating” schemes are spending more on education and throwing a bone to another of the left’s cherished supporters — the environmental lobby — by backing legislation that would “stimulate our clean-energy industry by encouraging the development of renewable technologies and promoting efficiency programs.”

Angel, meanwhile, argues, “We need to stop digging ourselves deeper with more regulations and higher taxes and fees that destroy jobs.”

From where we sit, Angel’s laissez-faire outlook makes more sense because it allows the marketplace to heal itself rather than expecting politicians to do it by picking winners and losers.

If Kilmer believes clean-energy companies are a sound bet, for example, let him speculate with his own money. But when it comes to taxpayer dollars, government shouldn’t be subsidizing ventures so risky they can’t secure capital in the private-sector.

Lest we forget, the economy is in the shape it’s in now because of the shotgun wedding arranged over the years between lenders and federal and state regulators. With that in mind, you can bet the quickest path to recovery is the one that involves the least government intervention, not more of the same.

Angel appears to recognize that. Kilmer doesn’t.