GOVERNING BODY VENTURA A POPULIST LIBERAL DISGUISED AS A LIBERTARIAN

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Self-deception can sometimes be a useful thing. As
long as the issue at hand is of no grave importance, it can provide
temporary relief of minor anxiety. But when people allow themselves to
be deluded about their political leaders, delusion can become
downright dangerous.

This brings us to the new governor of Minnesota, ex-professional
wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura.

A media sensation since the day he announced his candidacy, Ventura
has avoided the customary scrutiny of policy positions most
politicians endure. Because of this, he has fooled conservatives from
radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh to Washington Post columnist James
Glassman into thinking he is one of them.

Would that it were true.

True to his Reform Party roots, Ventura likes to sound conservative
while governing as a liberal. Elected on a platform of returning the
$4 billion state budget surplus to the taxpayers, governor "Backpedal"
quickly switched gears the day after the election, sheepishly
acknowledging prior surpluses had already been spent.

Not to worry, since he had also promised to return future surpluses in
their entirety to those who had so earnestly paid for them, right?
Well, not quite.

Ventura's first biennial budget proposal, effective through fiscal
year 2001, returns just a quarter of the projected future surplus of
$3.3 billion to the taxpayers, via permanent income tax cuts.

Moreover, his plan actually increases the progressivity of Minnesota's
already onerous tax code. It lowers the bottom rate by 0.25 percent,
leaving the upper brackets of 8 percent and 8.5 percent untouched.

Notwithstanding a mild expansion of bracket limits, this is a
redistributionist tax cut only liberals could love: returning budget
surpluses to those who had the least to do with them. This follows
Ventura's earlier proposal of a novel sales tax rebate of surpluses
generated through an explosion of income tax receipts.

Minnesota's most productive are being left out in the cold, even
though the top 10 percent of the state's wage earners now account for
more than 50 percent of income tax revenues.

With so little to threaten the state's high-tax reputation, Democrats
are delighted. Roger Moe, the state Senate majority leader, could
hardly contain his glee over Ventura's budget. "I'm very impressed so
far," Moe said. "We like his approach." And why not.

The get-tough governor has vowed to continue Minnesota's profligate
spending ways by calling for a $23.4 billion two-year budget, a
whopping 9.8 percent increase from the last biennium (12.2 percent if
you include Minnesota's tobacco settlement windfall).

With double-digit increases in health and human services (read
"welfare"), mass transit and education spending, it isn't hard to see
why a former Democratic House speaker, Rep. Phil Carruthers, calls
Ventura "a pleasant surprise."

Had there been any doubt about which direction the new governor's
education policy would lean, it was put to rest recently when he
body-slammed school choice proponents by declaring the "days of
bashing public education" are over.

In a pandering speech to the Minnesota School Boards Association, the
grappler-in-chief bemoaned the fact that the word "voucher" remains a
part of the public policy lexicon, adding, "I'm here to tell you that
it isn't in my vocabulary." Some reform agenda.

But perhaps Ventura's coup de grace was his appointment of the
environmentally conscious Ted Mondale (yes, son of former Vice
President Walter Mondale) to head up the Twin Cities' powerful
regional government, the Metropolitan Council.

The unelected council, with a budget of $450 million, runs the area's
transit system with the stated goal of increasing traffic on
"alternative travel modes."

Ventura loves the idea, and hired Mondale to put an end to "urban
sprawl" by getting people out of their cars, out of the suburbs and
back in the core cities. No doubt Vice President Al Gore is smiling.

So is Ventura. In addition to putting more empty buses on the street,
his new budget throws an initial $60 million down a rat hole called
light-rail transit, whose final price tag will be well over $400
million for just one main traffic corridor.

Fact is, the "Governing Body" has always been a populist liberal
masquerading as a libertarian.

An advocate of gay rights and drug legalization, Ventura nevertheless
championed Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III's fraudulent lawsuit
against Big Tobacco -- ostensibly on behalf of Minnesota taxpayers.

But rather than return the settlement money to its rightful owner, he
now wants to set aside for social programs the $1.3 billion the state
is scheduled to receive over the next five years.

It's time for the right to shake itself loose from Jesse "The Body's"
sleeper-hold. The abortion-on-demand, pro-assisted suicide,
union-backing governor is simply not a conservative.

In fact, he is actively encouraging his key adviser, former Democratic
Rep. Tim Penny, to run against a Republican incumbent, Sen. Rod Grams,
one of the Senate's most reliable conservatives.

Of course, my analysis of Jesse "The Mind" -- as he now likes to refer
to himself -- could be wrong. And then again, professional wrestling
could be real.