In the wake of California's Proposition 13, mandating a cap on tax rises, the whole idea of referendums had gained a new cachet. Mr. Davidson, whose organization was pressing for a constitutional convention to pass a balanced-budget amendment, engages Messrs. Buckley and van den Haag in a lively discussion of specific initiatives and of the more general question of representative versus plebiscitary democracy. Here is Mr. Davidson's metaphor for why the Federal Government overspends: "Assume that everybody in this room, including those in the audience, all shared the same Master Charge card... . And, say, if there were 100 people,... at the end of each billing period we'd all have to pay l/100th of the amount that we ran up on the card. And so we might

all say to one another, 'Well, wow, the bill could be fantastic. We might all go bankrupt.' ... But the question is, Is it rational for anybody not to spend? And the answer is no, because you get 100 per cent of the benefit that you spend, and you pay 1/100th of the bill that you rack up. So the person who acts responsibly and says, 'No, I won't spend,' is the guy who's going to end up paying for other people's expenditures alone and not get anything himself."