To raise taxes or cut services

This is the dilemma facing political decision makers in most industrialised countries at the moment. Under a system of direct democracy the solution to the fiscal problems would be much more transparent as citizens would have the ability to vote on each spending measure item by item. This would avoid the commingled decision-making that dominates the political landscape at the moment where citizens may agree to measure A but not to measure B but have no way of making a differentiated contribution at the ballot box.