Hey sorry for the late response. It's mostly relevant due to the knock on effects any damage to california does the the rest of the US's economy. Since California is so economically imporant to the US. And what hurts it via cause and effect will hurt other states too.

So like yeah they can't outright just refuse to pay the feds but they will most likely have to redirect state funds in order to make up the difference. State funds that go to things like port maintenence, and processing, agricultural inspections, anything like that. Those don't just effect california due to its size, and how it is the origin point of a lot of the stuff that gets shipped to the rest of the US.

I think a lot of the cut funds for example were to universities. Which are where all the new research is done. So like at a time where China is surpassing the US in a lot of things the US is going to kneecap it's own ability to do research? Kinda crazy. Like say your a university in Ohio, and your working on some research jointly with a california univesity. That gets cut, and now Ohio either stops their research too, or picks up the slack funding wise.

Like if you did this same thing to Oklahoma for example the rest of the country largely wouldnt notice. No offense to Oklahoma intended. It's just a weird thing for the US federal govt to be shooting itself in the foot like this i guess.