Overall, California COULD slow the slide somewhat if they would ditch, for good and all, the “train to nowhere” that is slated to be built somewhere up the San Joaquin Valley.
Poorly conceived, poorly placed, and with no discernable economic value. Commuter planes are already in place, and were the Transportation Security Administration procedures to be streamlined to perform in an effective manner, the volume would almost insure, that high-speed inter-urban passenger rail was totally obsolete.
If the functioning tracks and right-of-way do not already exist, then there is no economical way to put them in place now.
Another thing that California could do, but has no will to do so, is a little self-help on energy production and distribution. Opening up the off-shore oil wells could vastly improve their supply of petroleum and natural gas to power their energy demands, and restricting the application of the California Air Regulatory Board to the parts of California where there is a problem, would do much to reduce the regulatory restrictions that is choking off productivity in what is probably the one state in the US with the greatest endowment of natural resources.
As it is, California is rapidly descending into a Third-World country, with the economic clout of Greece.
Can the rest of the United States just kick California OUT of the US?
It’s been explained on this site, that if California goes over the cliff, it could lose its state status and revert back to being a territory, administered by the federal government.
Perhaps that is the intent. The tenth amendment is such an inconvenience to the dictatorial mindset.