The government allocated trillions of dollars that were intended to aid small businesses, protect unemployed individuals, and prevent economic devastation but was instead, in some cases, spent on handouts for wealthy individuals and giant corporations.
The greatest clue comes from the non-underlined part of the sentence: “but WAS spent”.
A. dollars that were intended to aid small businesses, protect unemployed individuals, and prevent economic devastation
“were” is incorrect because amount of money is uncountable.
B. dollars that was intended to aid small businesses and unemployed individuals and prevent economic devastation
Correct: parallelism is great “dollars that WAS intended… but WAS spent”
C. dollars intended to aid small businesses and unemployed individuals and to prevent economic devastation
“but” is a parallelism marker.
“but was spent” is not parallel to anything now, hence incorrect.
D. dollars, which intended to aid small businesses, unemployed individuals, and prevent economic devastation
“but” is a parallelism marker.
“but was spent” is not parallel to anything now, hence incorrect.
E. dollars, intending to aid small businesses and unemployed individuals, preventing economic devastation,
“but” is a parallelism marker.
“but was spent” is not parallel to anything now, hence incorrect.
Hence B