There’s a quote (allegedly) from his father that President Joe Biden likes to use: “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” We could just as well tweak it: “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me how hard you fight for something, and I’ll tell you what you value.”

If we look at the contrast between the mammoth military aid package funding a trilogy of global conflicts the president signed into law last week, and the ambitious social safety net expansion that faded into oblivion in December 2021, it is hard to come to a different conclusion than this: Biden, and by extension the US Congress, simply didn’t consider the passage of this progressive wish list a priority, and cared far more about shipping nearly $100 billion off for foreign wars.

Consider the military aid package that just passed and how it got over the line. Further military aid to Ukraine, a top priority for the White House, had been stalled for the better part of a year thanks to divisions within the Republican caucus on the issue. Israel’s war on Gaza provided an opening to get it done: Biden, Democrats, and GOP backers of the Ukrainian war effort like Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell would capitalize on bipartisan support for Israel and the urgency of the war to pair aid to both countries together, and “daring lawmakers,” as the New York Times put it, opposed to the Ukraine aid to vote down the aid to Israel, too.