California offers a warning to voters all over the world

We need reliable decision makers that can use expert advisors to make decisions that will help us all. The problem that many see with government is the development of career statesmen. Individuals that have spent decades in office. They become ingrained and out of touch. We should instead consider eliminating the ability to easily remove elected officials between elections and put in place legislation that would limit the # of terms our representatives can serve. This would do away with much of the cronyism and lack of action that leaves a bad taste with the public.

As far as the direct democracy's ability to balance the budget... that is obvious to understand. People only think of themselves and how these decisions will affect themselves. That is human nature. Any economics or philosophy student would be able to tell you what happens when you let a group of people vote on something like this. Either we need a more educated and selfless population (impossible) or a better structured government for decision making (needs to happen).

Last election I was discussing some of the spending bills with randoms in line waiting to vote. It became clear that they did not understand the bills but were "told" by friends or media how they should vote. In my view, there seems to be a distorted-abstract-representative that controls these group-voting circles. Just cause they cast the ballot themselves doesn't mean they are not being represented by this abstract representative. It was clear that some of these people were about to unknowingly vote in direct opposition to their own principles.

My guess is that such initiatives would fail mainly because the special interests that are the main beneficiaries of tax dollars would bankroll a huge media campaign against them.