There's A Reason We Have A Representative Democracy

A great piece in The Economist about the fiscal disaster in California. I have always had a fundamental objection to direct democracy and any time I need to find courage in my convictions, I look at California. The state is a mess because special interests have exploited direct democracy to make it impossible for legislators to unseat them. The budget arrives in the legislature pre-cut up. This has been a problem for years but now facing declining revenues, the crisis has reached a new peak. We pay our politicians and bureaucrats good money to run our government. We do so not because politicians tricked us but because running a government is hard work and is actually a full time job. Direct democracy is a way for politicians to avoid making tough decisions.