That needs to broken down between domestic and military spending. I don't think you'd want the ICBM bases in North Dakota located near the highly populated urban areas like the northeast which has lots of blue states.
Why not? Let’s build some missile silos in Boston....put a few in Berkeley, Calif. for good measure.
I'd be willing to bet grain price supports, Indian money, and welfare payments wildly exceed the budget for ICBM bases in North Dakota. Further, coastal blue states have more than their share of military bases and still send more money to the Feds than they get back.
As a former North Dakotan, I used to bat heads with the peace weenies all the time. The argument was that North Dakota would be targeted because we had the ICBM and ABM bases. Likewise, the bases were located there because we were sparesly populated.
I've spoken to a lot of military people there and elsewhere since and neither argument holds water.
From the viewpoint of an enemy intent on inflicting maximum damage, population centers and industrial areas are far more tempting targets. Notice that boxers go for the areas where the opponent is most vulnerable (head & stomach) not the areas most likely to hit back (arm muscles, fists, forearms).
Likewise, the location of the bases are geographical (center of North America, best chance to intercept inbound missiles), not due to sparse population. The Nevada desert is far more empty than North Dakota. So is the Missouri breaks area of Montana, almost all of Alaska, Wyoming and other areas. Geography, not sparse population, plays the leading role in the location of these bases.
Ditto for economics. Yes, the government spent a small fortune to begin construction of the ABM bases in North Dakota in the early 1970's. And yes, it produced a few hundred new construction jobs during that period. But by the end of the decade, the idiot Carter gave away the ABM advantage and the current RAT U.S. Senators became heros for the populace when, as state tax department officials, they went after the FEDS for the damage they'd left in the wake of Carter's sudden closure. Fortunately, Reagan reversed the idiot decision, but the premanent jobs generated were a few hundred at the most.
A single naval base (Groton) in one pissant blue state (Connecticut) employs more than ten times the people than all of the ICBM and ABM bases in North Dakota.