I guess the writers over there were bored. Time to roll out the “everything is gonna crumble apart if this very speculative hypothetical scenario plays out” article to fill the space and scare some people into clicking.
The grass is pretty green right now, but if the rain stops, boy it will be a problem!
People love speculative fiction :)
We can reframe this article's hypothetical doomsday premise to any state:
"Iowa, the undisputed king of corn, will face a recession if there is a multi-year drought."
the correct analogy would be that Iowa’s state budget would be in trouble if it were overly reliant on taxes on corn - is that the case?