In addition to the boom in tax revenue, the federal government’s books are being helped by lower defense spending, a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, the automakers that were taken over by Washington in 2009.
(A) are being helped by lower defense spending,
a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler,
the automakers(B) have been helped by lower defense spending,
a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and by proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler,
automakers(C) have been helped by lower defense spending,
a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler, and
by the automakers(D) are being helped by lower defense spending,
by a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, and proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler,
the automakers(E) were helped by lower defense spending
and a drop in outlays for benefits like Medicaid, also by proceeds from the sales of General Motors and Chrysler,
the automakersAfter eliminating C, D,E base on their wrong appositive modifier. There are only A and B, B has present perfect tense, which is unnecessary because there is no sign of that tense in this sentence. The remaining correct answer is
A _________________