Ben Goddard writes in The Hill about the new taxpayer revolt in California this week. The political establishment put together a package of initiatives that it thought would fix the budget process there – but the people weren’t buying it.  The only thing they passed was the measure to ban salary increases for legislators if they didn’t balance the budget.

There are similar proposals floating around Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.  If bills were subject to a popular vote, it seems like such a thing would be likely to pass.