On this one particular issue he is "better than *the* alternative", yes; however, the problem lies in the dyadic assumption that we are subscribing to when voting in general (which is what I was trying to address). I'm not saying you made a bad point, I think it's good to put these things into relative perspective. But the response at least seemed to be "look they only increased the spending a little compared to Biden" when Qasim's original point was that they aren't cutting waste despite promising to. An increase is the opposite of cutting.
Thus, it seemed like "that guy increases it a lot, but this guy only increased it a little," when the original point was that actual decreases should be made instead since that is one of the campaign promises that fails to be enacted each time the Republicans are in power.
So, fair enough perhaps this wasn't whataboutism per se, but it seemed to me to distract from the original point Qasim was making. Apologies for the misclassification :)