What you aren't taking into account is why a lot of the states appearing at the top of the list are there, "leeching government money" as you put it. They are some of the states with the lowest population and income levels, but home to federal projects that cost a lot of money to maintain that provide a service the entire country (arguably I suppose) benefits from. New Mexico has two of the largest national laboratories in the country, Los Alamos and Sandia. As I'm sure you know they are responsible for designing and building our nuclear arsenal, which I am sure has a pretty high price tag, along with tons of other advanced research projects. Three of the others that pop out at me are North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. These three states were the ones that actually housed the bulk of the US nuclear arsenal, presumably because every other state said "No F-ing Way".
Look here for the list of air force bases that maintained the Minuteman missiles. I grew up in the part of MT where they had those missiles, and they were always doing training drills along the mountain front back in the 80's and 90's before the cold war ended.