But how will we pay for our defense budget?

(Said no one ever.)

With the weekend news that noted yacht-owner Sen. Joe Manchin (a West Virginia Democrat who, as they say on Twitter, has tested positive for Republican) “can’t get there” when it comes to voting for Pres. Biden’s Build Back Better social policy, it’s time to reflect on things politicians don’t appear to argue about.

(I’ll just leave this here: The senator’s comments on Fox are counter to what the senator told the president just days earlier, bless his heart.)

Ever wonder why we do not argue over our defense budget? Is it because freedom? ‘Murica?

Both House and Senate have passed a $768 billion defense budget. That’s $24-25 billion over what the president originally requested. I wouldn’t argue with every provision in the budget — pay raises for military personnel are good — but the comparison to the much-discussed Build Back Better price tag ($170-175 billion in its first year) is stark.

(For more on what’s in the defense budget, go here. For more on what’s in Pres. Biden’s BBB plan, go here.) So it’s a yes to bombs and no to universal pre-k, as this Esquire piece notes

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, especially when you remember that a budget is a moral document. As the Jesuits say, budgets:

reveal priorities and values, and as a society, they are the primary way that we care for one another, especially for the vulnerable.

Remember that time House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called BBB “the single most reckless and irresponsible spending bill in our nation’s history?” That line was buried in an eight-hour speech that was riddled with nonsense, in which he never once mentioned defense spending. You can be forgiven if you missed that bit of November rhetoric. I can’t recommend it.

The pandemic has strafed us. Families are no longer being propped up with various government programs meant to get them through shuttered stores and closed factories. And now we have omicron and an uncertain future, again. Still. I’m with the Rev. Dr. William Barber on this: We can’t afford to not pass the Build Back Better bill.