STRESSED state-level politicians were looking admiringly at
Oregon this week, where voters upheld two tax increases passed
by their legislature last year. If Oregonians can do it, might
other voters also volunteer for higher taxes to save their
public services?  In severity and kind, if not in size, the
problems of Oregon resemble those of its much larger neighbour,
California. Both states were hit hard by the recession. Both
have high unemployment, falling tax revenues and gaping budget
holes. And both have hyperactive forms of direct democracy that
let voters pre-empt or second-guess their legislatures with
ballot initiatives, referendums and recalls.  As a rule, Western
voters like laws (for better schools or longer prison terms,
say) that cost money, while blocking the taxes that would pay
for them, thus helping to break their state budgets in hard
times. Voters in Oregon, for example, have rejected a state
sales tax nine times since the 1930s; the state is now one of
only five without one. Oregon relies