Then accept that the public initiatives, which are always going to be populist in nature, for creating part of the financial mess the state of Oregon is in.   

That's what you get when; "In the last two decades most of the landmark legislation in Oregon has happened at the ballot box, not the one-sided legislature".

The public doesn't know what 'balancing the budget means' and they cannot know the complexity or have the time to study the issues.     

I'm convinced that the populist route of using public initiatives is lowering the quality of the conversation down to campaign slogans.

We should refuse to accept any public initiative that can't reach a 50% approval of all eligible voters, not just the 20% that voting is likely to pull in.     The public initiative process is a failure that rewards minority activist, who can show passion for single issue, without ever doing the work of understanding the interaction with other government services.