Self-study
Support Fares on the city-run public buses in Greenville are subsidized by city tax revenues, but among the beneficiaries of the low fares are many people who commute from outside the city to jobs in Greenville. ████ ████ ███████████ █████ ████ ████ █████ ██████ ██ ████ █████████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████ ███ ███ █████ ███ █████████ ████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████████
Argument Breakdown
The stimulus tells us that Greenville's bus fares are subsidized by city taxes, which keeps the fares low. Some of the people who benefit from these subsidized fares live outside Greenville and only commute in for work. So some city councillors argue that, since city taxes should primarily benefit people who pay them, bus fares should be raised high enough to cover the whole cost of the bus service — i.e., the bus fares should no longer be subsidized by city taxes.
Notable Assumptions
There are two main assumptions behind the councillors' argument. First, their argument assumes that people who live outside Greenville but work in the city don't pay city taxes. Second, their argument assumes that the subsidized bus fares do not "primarily" benefit people who pay city taxes — i.e., (according to the previous assumption) people who live in the city. For this to be true, we would need to know that more people were benefiting from subsidized bus fares who did not pay city taxes than people who did. But the stimulus only tells us that "many" people who live outside Greenville ride the bus, not that "most" people who ride the bus live outside Greenville.
So a good way to weaken the councillors' argument would be to target either of these assumptions. If we found an answer choice showing that even if people don't live in Greenville, they still have to pay Greenville city taxes if they work or commute there, or an answer choice showing that, despite "many" passengers coming from outside Greenville, the main or "primary" beneficiaries of the subsidized bus fares are people who live in Greenville and pay city taxes, these would both weaken the argument.
19.
Each of the following, if █████ █████ ██████ ███ ████████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ███████████ ███████
a
Many businesses whose ████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███ ████████ █████████ █████ ████████ ███████ ███ ████ ██ ██████████████ █████ ████ ████ ██████████
If this is true, then raising the bus fares, far from benefiting the city's taxpayers, would actually harm them. (A) weakens the argument, so it's not what we're looking for.
b
By providing commuters ████ ████████ ██████████ ██ █████ ██ █████ ██████ ███████ █████ █████ ██████ ███ █████████ ██ ██████████ ███ ████████ ███ ████ ██ ███████████ ███ ████████ ████████
If this is true, then raising the bus fares would bring a side effect that would potentially harm Greenville's citizens and might lead to higher taxes for maintaining the streets. (B) weakens the argument, so it's not what we're looking for.
c
Increasing transit fares █████ ████████████ █████ █████████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ██████ ████ ████ ██████ ███ ███ ████ ███████████ █████ ████ █████ █████████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ████ █████████ ██ ████████ █████████
This might at first seem irrelevant to the argument. The councillors in the stimulus want to benefit taxpayers, and (C) is about benefiting people who don't pay taxes. But since (C) says that all councillors agree that it is also important to benefit these low-income residents, we have to add this information to the argument in the stimulus: even though some councillors say it's important to primarily benefit taxpayers, those same councillors would also agree it's important to provide access to transit services for low-income residents. And since raising transit fares would disadvantage these residents, (C) gives us a reason against raising fares. So (C) weakens the argument and is not what we're looking for.
d
Voters in the █████ ████ ██ ████ ███████ ████ ███ ███ ███████ ██████ ███ ████████ ███████ ██ ██████████ █████ ██████
Correct. Like the stimulus, the only quantifier given here is "many", which, on the LSAT, basically gives us the same information as "some." In other words, knowing that "many" voters in the city benefit from the low fares doesn't help us figure out whether it is primarily city taxpayers who benefit from those fares (notice that we don't even know that these particular voters pay the city taxes). Also, even if we were told that most of Greenville's voters were opposed to raising transit fares, what the voters wanted wouldn't necessarily be the same thing as what would most benefit them — but (D) doesn't even talk about raising transit fares. It talks about raising local taxes, which the stimulus doesn't talk about at all. So (D) doesn't weaken the argument.
e
People who work ██ ██████████ ███ ████ █████ █████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ███████ ███ ███ ███ ████ ████ ███ ██ █ ████████
This targets the first assumption we identified in the councillors' argument: the assumption that people who live outside Greenville and commute into the city to work don't pay city taxes. By establishing that these people likely do pay city taxes, this answer choice strongly undermines the councillors' assumption that many people who don't pay city taxes are benefiting from the subsidized transit fares — it creates the possibility that, regardless of how many of the bus passengers live in Greenville versus outside Greenville, it is still city taxpayers who primarily benefit from the subsidized fare. Thus, (E) weakens the argument and therefore isn't what we're looking for.