California's taxing structure never contemplated its current circumstances. Tax structures contemplated traditional income and population demographics. The rise of the public sector, the rise of organized labor, the ebbs and flows of technology were all contemplated and would have been manageable were it not for an act of self serving compassion that, ironically, was instigated by Californians and implemented during the Reagan administration.
Few Californians of the Reagan era could have predicted the sudden shift from production to consumption within the past 15 years. Nor could they have reasonably predicted the precipitous flight of the means of production or the flood of marginally productive, uneducated with high birth rates since 1990.
Consider that immigration and its consequences (progeny) is today, the sole source of California's expanding population. Excepting the effects of immigration, California population is shrinking. Further exacerbating this anomaly , a significant, unforecast percentage of the educated, productive class is in a forced flight from the state as their employers avoid the confiscatory tax burden that has resulted from California's liberal governance and their attempts to redistribute wealth. Few, if any, within rational government circles in the 1980s, knew that the US would simply open it southern boarders to unrestricted immigration within a scant 25 years.
The final blow came as a result of the accelerated birth rates among the flood of new immigrants, shifting resources into the public safety net to support and maintain an accelerating and, by circumstance, unproductive class in the 0 to 14 year age demographic. By 2025 that class will consume over 50% of California's productivity utilizing the current taxing schemes.
I agree with the way you portray what has happened in the last few decades but I think it was easily predictable—and in some cases part of the master plan. The environmental movement comes to mind. I also remember back in the early 1980s a relatively unknown Rep. Boxer launching an assault on defense contractors through changes to arcane laws and regulations leading to their decisions to also flee the state. While federal laws, there were related reasons that made it advantageous to get the heck out. There are too many examples of other laws to mention but the consequences should have been obvious to those who look further than the next election, IMO.