President Biden is reportedly going to ask Congress for a $100 billion supplemental spending package that includes money for Israel's war, for Ukraine, for the U.S.-Mexico border, and to defend Taiwan.
Part of this is political necessity. The whole foreign aid budget has traditionally gotten through Congress on the basis of support for aid to Israel. Biden can't get enough Republicans in Congress to back money for Ukraine. There'd be political downside to any member voting against aid to Israel after the ISIS-style terrorist attack. So why not use the must-pass Israel legislation as a vehicle to carry some additional national security spending, winning over the votes necessary? The alternative—a "clean," Israel-only supplemental spending measure—would leave Ukraine in the lurch and might lose some Republican members who have been arguing against spending anything more overseas until the southern border is secure.
Beyond the political necessity, though, is a strategic statement. The weekend of the Iran-backed terrorist attack on Israel, I wrote about what I called "a four-front war." Understanding that is the first step toward victory. The right move is to keep all four fronts in the spending bill (rather than focusing solely on any single one of the four) and, simultaneously, to adopt and, with care, articulate a forward strategy for victory on all four fronts. If the drafters of the legislation are able to craft, in the name and introductory language of the bill, some words explaining the common themes of all four fronts, it'd help. That could make the supplemental spending measure not merely another Washington spending binge, but a law that sets some war aims, defines some policy goals, and communicates them to America and the world.