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The people have hired the government to serve the people, and the reason that government is fiscally irresponsible is that the people have paid the government with a blank check, allowing the government to vote itself as much of the people's money as it wants.

To make government fiscally responsible, the people must tear up the blank check by taking direct control of the ability of the government to get their money. This is achieved through a citizen-controlled ceiling on government income. The ceiling is expressed as a percentage of the income of the economy, allowing government income to grow as the income of the economy grows.

The people can change the ceiling in response to a request by the legislature or through an initiative process. As a result, over time the people can lower the ceiling on government income through an initiative process, thereby driving the ceiling down toward an asymptotic value, which will reduce government to its core functions.



The People's Initiative – Concept

How to reduce government to its core functions

The People's Initiative – Text and notes




Representative democracy suffers from an inherent deficiency because legislator votes must be public, enabling interest groups to control a representative democracy through a divide-and-conquer strategy. This deficiency was the reason for the American Civil War: a small minority of southern citizens — large-scale slaveholders — controlled the southern governments and suppressed discussion of alternatives to slavery for 70 years: from the Haitian slave revolt in 1791 to the start of the war in 1861.

By contrast, under direct democracy, a citizen vote can be private since a citizen represents only him-or-herself, and this prevents interest groups from controlling a citizen vote. This also entails a new separation of powers in government: the citizens will control the budget total through a ceiling on government income, while the government will control spending priorities.



The Core Defect in Representative Democracy: Control of the legislature by interest groups

Slavery, Fiscal Irresponsibility, and Interest Groups

How can we return to limited government?

The Why and the How of Democracy: A new theory and a new solution

Fiscal Irresponsibility: The leprosy of representative democracy




The People's Initiative will have a unique appeal because it gives the people direct control of the ability of the government to get their money. This is everyone's intuitive dream that seems too good to believe in! With the ceiling in place, the people will own the ceiling, so they will identify with the ceiling as they identify with their wallets and their bank accounts.

The ceiling will thereby provide a platform for fiscal conservatives to get elected. They will achieve this based on plans to serve the people by making government ever more efficient and ever leaner, as programs that don't need to be performed by government are either terminated or are turned over to the private sector, where they will benefit from the incentives of competition.



The People's Initiative – Strategy

The People's Initiative: The penicillin that will kill the fiscal disease



How big a government do we want? A reply to Robert J. Samuelson



The People's Initiative – Talk, 2010-04-15, Bellevue Tea Party Rally

A New Separation of Powers – Talk, 2010-07-04, Luther Burbank Park, Mercer Island

The Importance of Initiatives – Talk, 2010-09-13, King County Republican Exec Board

The Why and the How of Democracy – Talk ad, 2011-03-17, Conservative Enthusiasts

The Why and the How of Democracy – Talk bullets, 2011-03-17, Conservative Enthusiasts

The U.S. Fiscal Problem: Why autocrats sneer at us – Talk bullets, 2011-08-18, CE

Fiat Money: Why it works and how to manage it – Talk bullets, 2011-10-27, CE

The Second American Revolution – Intro, 2012-03-15, CE

Why direct democracy solves the problem of special interest groups – Talk, 2012-06-21, CE

How can we limit interest-group influence on legislatures? – Talk bullets, 2013-01-17, CE