Something better than what I was given.

better.yml

- hosts: all # Never a good idea to use all group unless testing
  sudo: yes # don't do this, use inventory to set the ansible_become=True variable.

  tasks:
  - name: Cat inputs out of splunk in opt
    slurp:
      src: "{{ splunk_inputs_file }}"
    register: splunk_inputs_file_slurp
    when:
    - ansible_distribution == 'RedHat'
    vars:
      file1: "/opt/splunkforwarder/etc/system/local/inputs.conf"
      file2: "/app/splunkforwarder/etc/system/local/inputs.conf"
      splunk_inputs_file: "{{ (ansible_distribution_major_version == '7' | bool) | ternary(file1, file2) }}"

  - debug:
      var: file_content_decoded
    vars:
      file_content_decoded: "{{ splunk_inputs_file_slurp.content | b64decode }}"
    when:
    - splunk_inputs_file_slurp is defined