Railroad spokesperson: Of course it is a difficult task to maintain quality of service at the same time that the amount of subsidy the taxpayers give the railroad network is reduced. ████ ██████ ██████ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███ █████████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ███████████ ████ ████ █████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███████ ███ ████ █████████████
The spokesperson concludes that the railroad's service quality has been satisfactory, despite the difficulty caused by subsidy reductions. How do we know? Because the railroad's passenger numbers have not only stayed steady, but have actually increased in recent years.
But hang on—there's no direct connection between passenger numbers and service quality. What if the railroad was so essential that people had to use it no matter how bad the service got? For the argument to make sense, we have to assume that passenger numbers are linked to service quality.
The spokesperson’s argument is based ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████████████
Taxpayers do not ████ ██ ████ █████ █████ ██████ ██ █████████ ███ ██████████
How taxpayers feel about the railroad subsidy isn't part of the argument. The decreased subsidy is just context for the core of the argument. The subsidy has decreased, we don't need to explain why.
Some people refuse ██ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ████ ███ ████████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ████████
This gives us a link between passenger numbers and service quality, which is exactly what we need to assume. The spokesperson uses increased passenger numbers to support the conclusion that quality has stayed high. But passenger numbers only reflect high quality if poor quality would cause passenger numbers to fall.
The quality of ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ████ ████████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ███████████
The spokesperson only goes as far as concluding that
It is impossible ██ ██████ █████████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ████████
The spokesperson says that reducing subsidies makes it
The increase in ███ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████ ████████ ███████ ████████████ ██ ██████ ███ ███████ ███████████
(E) goes beyond the scope of the argument. The spokesperson claims that service quality has remained high, and seeks to prove this by citing increased passenger numbers. None of this depends on the railroad being able to balance its books—the finances are just context.
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