Normally a country that is the size of CA, and having the same economy, would have a broader tax base because it wouldn't be losing money to another government,

Normally a country that is the size of CA, and having the same economy, would have a broader tax base because it wouldn't be losing money to another government, in this case, the federal government of the United States. Of course, there is Prop 13, which greatly harmed the state's ability to collect taxes. Finally, I'd argue that efficiency is impossible as long as the government continues to use the same just-in-time models that the private sector uses. The main problem being that there is no guarantee of work or quality when a contractor is hired by a government. We either need those guarantees or we need to switch back to in-house work.