I'd also like to raise their salaries. Cutting one house would save about $25 million a year, so you could afford to make legislators full-time and less dependent on special interests.
Reason: Minnesota state legislators are not full-time?
Ventura: No. If I call a special session, they have to come here and we have to put them back on the payroll, with all these per diems and this and that. If you get a decent salary, then it would instill a better-qualified person to want to seek out public service. And it would also make it possible for representatives to go back to their districts and spend down time visiting constituents and looking over their district, rather than taking care of their own business.
Reason: Tell me about your feelings on education. The standard libertarian view leans toward vouchers, as did your predecessor, Gov. Arne Carlson.
Ventura: When vouchers were first introduced, I couldn't get them [for my kids]. There were limits--if you made over so much money, you couldn't qualify. That means I had to either pay full rate or get stuck with a public school. I think if you're going to come out with something like that it should be available to all.
Reason: I asked Governor Carlson about that and he said, "Well it's a first step, you know, you can't get everything at once. But it's a step in the right direction."
Ventura: I don't think so. My point is this: What happens to all the people who can't use the vouchers and go to private school? What do they get stuck with then, a sub-standard public school system? I'm a product of public schools and I challenge people: Rather than running from public schools, let's band together and make them better. I believe in fighting the fight, not retreating. And what you have today is people retreating from public schools. The good people are running away instead of fighting the fight. Sure there's improvements that have to be made. There's a lot of stuff in public schools that have to be fixed. But you don't fix them by running away from them.
Reason: One of your high priorities is to reduce class size. Was that an idea you had from the start?
Ventura: No. That came on when I brought Mae Schunk on board as my lieutenant governor. When I started my run, I was polling four times better with men than women, which told me I needed a female running mate. Also, since I was a mayor and mayors don't deal much with education, I knew I needed someone strong in that. So I knew I needed a woman from education to solidify my run. Mae's been a teacher for 36 years. If you want to find out what's going on in school, ask a teacher. And she said the key is getting our class sizes down, where teachers can teach 17 kids, especially in kindergarten through third grade.
Reason: So the class reduction measure will be an early legislative item?
Ventura: Yes.
Reason: What's your thinking on Minnesota's budget surplus? Some observers say that you're hedging on giving it back to taxpayers.
Ventura: A budget surplus is easy to deal with: It means they've overcharged you. It's no different than the electric company. Let's say you get a bill where they charge you $200, using an estimated reading. Then the actual reading gets done and you only owe $100. Don't you think you should be given credit back immediately? Or do you allow the electric company to say, "Well, we overcharged you $100, but we need to do it to explore alternative energy sources. So we're going to keep your $200." The government would never allow a company to do that. And it shouldn't be allowed to overcharge you, either.
My point is that I want to balance the books at the end of the fiscal year [June 30] before we give money back. I don't want to do it on speculation because I don't deal with speculation. All of these experts that did speculation and statistics and all that--well, they speculated that I wouldn't be sitting here, and I am. So I don't deal with speculation. I deal with real money in the bank. When the real money's there and the books have been balanced, if there's extra money there, it goes back to the taxpayers.
Right now, I've got the Republicans haranguing me that it needs to go back to taxpayers immediately.
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