Seems like back pedaling but I'll bite.
I said it because the ability to create a social safety net and the ability to do research, even for the sake of international prestige, are in fact unrelated and the only reason to relate them is being hostile to both or trying to deflect from the lack of funding by shifting the blame to actually useful or productive things that do get funded.
As I said you can absolutely have both, but allowing poverty and human suffering to exit while focusing on these other things will always cast a shadow on them.
Like I said the starting point should be providing a basic standard of living for your citizens. Then you fund everything else. The US generates enough wealth to do both. The US generates enough wealth to fund hundreds of different programs, but I think a country's first duty before all else is providing for its citizens. That statement doesn't negate funding for anything else it just establishes a priority.