Watching Congress at work last week, it might seem as though things were better with a do-nothing Congress.

Late last week, Congress was back to its old tricks, gaming the system and inserting favors for special interests into a large piece of must-pass legislation.

A 1,600-page spending bill moved through Congress that mostly funded the government for the next nine months. Both parties know that the public dislikes government shutdowns, so the bill had bipartisan support for passage. But as often happens, the must-pass bill attracted special legislative favors inserted into the 1,600 pages of the large bill, expecting them not to be noticed until after passage.

Washington journalists noted that friends of the big Wall Street banks inserted language to roll back regulation of risky financial instruments known as derivatives.

The financial reform rollback language did not come from members of Congress understanding a problem and spelling out language to fix the problem. A document leaked to the New York Times found that 70 lines of the 85 lines written to ease regulation of derivatives was taken nearly word-for-word from a proposed bill written by lobbyists for Citigroup, a big Wall Street bank that was a key player in the 2008-09 financial crisis and one of the banks getting taxpayer bailouts.

Wall Street has a bipartisan message and spends hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying both parties and contributing to the re-election campaigns of Republicans and Democrats.

Another piece buried in the big spending bill has to do with military spending. Journalists weeding through the thousand-plus pages found that military equipment not requested by the Pentagon was added back into the $1.1 trillion general spending plan. Congressional leaders inserted four additional F-35 joint strike fighters, which cost $479 million each, despite the Defense Department not asking for the additional planes. The F-35 program has been controversial, running way over budget and years behind schedule — while running up a tab of $400 billion. The plane’s manufacturer, Lockheed-Martin, spent about $30 million on lobbying and campaign contributions in the past year or so.

A third piece of legislation quietly added to the must-pass spending bill would more than double the amount an individual can give to a political party to $650,000. One report noted that the expanded campaign finance loophole appeared on page 1,599 of the 1,603-page document.

And to prove that some members of Congress are financial conservatives, meaning they try to find ways to pay for the added goodies for Wall Street and defense contractors, there were a few spending cuts. The amount of money is not significant in a $1.1 trillion bill, but the legislation voted on late last week contained a $93 million cut to the food program for low-income women and children, known as WIC — Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.

Sneaking special favors into massive bills that are expected to pass is an old game, but it should stop. If the banking rules are too tough, there should be a public debate about them. If the Pentagon needs more F-35s, there should be a public discussion.

Republicans behind the easing of Wall Street regulations and extra billions for defense contractors should remember that they complained loudly a few years ago when House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said that House members “have to pass it to see what’s in it” when they complained about parts of the massive health care reform law known as ObamaCare.

Republicans last week were hoping nobody would realize what extras were in the $1.1 trillion spending bill until after it passed.

The public won’t like the way Congress managed this spending bill. But Wall Street banks, defense contractors and big campaign contributors will like it — and they matter more because they write the big checks.

— J.L.W.III