By a vote of 371-48 the House of Representatives last week passed a $578 billion appropriations bill to fund the Department of Defense for the rest of the FY’17 Fiscal Year.  While the Senate may make its own changes, and is likely to hold up passage until Democrats receive assurances on civilian spending, the House measure does contain a blue print of priority, and not so priority, spending areas.  These can give contractors some ideas about how to focus their business approach accordingly.  Cyber spending gets a nearly $1B increase over previous year funding in the House bill, indicating that cyber defensive and offensive capabilities continue to be a priority.  Certain weapons systems also get a boost.  In the meantime, Operations & Maintenance accounts, that fund many commercial solution procurements, would get trimmed a bit.  The biggest losers in this area are funds to modernize and upgrade bases, with this line item being last on the priority list for all service branches.  While final levels of any eventual defense spending measure may change some, contractors may want to be familiar with some of the specifics here to start their planning.