PT10.S1.Q19 - question about the correct answer

jeff.wongkachi

I'm trying to wrap my head around why E counts as a weakener. I understand that this question hinges on this idea of 'city tax revenues'. and that some councillors think that city taxes should have benefits primarily to people who pay them. E theoretically weakens because this means anyone who works in Greenville and earns above a certain minimum has to pay a city wage tax of 5%, meaning they would have to pay the city too and ergo they should benefit from it. But it does require the assumption that these outside commuters are earning above the nationally mandated minimum. Why are we allowed to make this kind of assumption for this question? Or is it not an assumption at all -- rather that even the theoretical possibility of this already constitutes weakening?

I can kind of see that D is out of scope which means it's useless for the argument. Even if we assume that the voters in the city are taxpayers, we don't really care about their thoughts on increasing local taxes, and it doesn't really talk about increasing local taxes in the stimulus at all, just adjusting where those tax dollars go.

thisissparta

Tough question. E was a bit tricky and I had to spend some time thinking about why it weakens the question.

As an alternative explanation for why (E) weakens the question, I'd refer back to the context of the stimulus. In it, it is stated that many of the people who benefit from the tax subsidization are from outside the city. The next sentence then proceeds to stating that only taxpayers should be beneficiaries of the subsidization. I assumed that the city councilor(s) made a link between the beneficiaries and their geographical location (as a basis for exclusion). Answer choice (E) weakens the stimulus from this standpoint -- it says that, in fact, there are at least some beneficiaries who are from outside the city but still have to pay taxes. It challenges the assumption underpinning the councilor's criteria for excluding beneficiaries based on their geographical location, thus, weakening the stimulus.

@"jeff.wongkachi" said:
But it does require the assumption that these outside commuters are earning above the nationally mandated minimum. Why are we allowed to make this kind of assumption for this question? Or is it not an assumption at all -- rather that even the theoretical possibility of this already constitutes weakening?

To answer your question directly: It is an assumption but one that is safe/reasonable to make when we contrast it with AC (D). On the basis elimination, you'd be much more hard-pressed to eliminate D than E. There is an evident weakening element in E (as outlined in the rationale above) that's simply not present in D.

Hope this helps!

Logician

Hi @"jeff.wongkachi" I just gave the question a look over, here's my explanation:

Stimulus: some people who live outside of the city are benefiting from the lower subsidized fares, however, only those who pay taxes should benefit from the subsidized fares. Therefore, we should raise the fares to a price at which the cost of the service is covered (presumably, the price at which they will no longer have to subsidize it, meaning the people who live outside the city cannot free-ride).

So, I do think this argument does require you to make a small jump (as a lot of the older questions do), however, I think your confusion is stemming from the incorrect assumption that you're making. You see, you're assumption that the people living outside of the city are making above the nationally mandated minimum would actually make them eligible tax payers, (if you're assuming that they are in the suburbs and ultimately under the city's jurisdiction- which i believe is what you're thinking) meaning that they should be receiving the benefits. Whether they are eligible to pay taxes or not is irrelevant here because the assumption that the city Councillors are making is that "outside of the city" means they DO NOT pay city taxes. i.e. they are free-riding and should not be able to. Now let's look at the answer choices.

A) This weakens the argument by saying that the costs of raising prices outweigh the benefits as it would lead to less tax revenue.

B: Yes, again this weakens the argument the same way A does, raising prices would ultimately increase costs, i.e the costs outweigh the benefits.

C) So with this answer choice, if you actually just read the first half of the answer choice up until the comma, it would actually be a correct AC, as these citizens would not be tax payers and therefore should not benefit from the subsidized fares, so this would actually help the argument instead of hurt it. BUT, unfortunately we can't cherry pick parts of AC's, so the second part of the AC adds an exception which ultimately gives us a reason not to accept this answer choice.

D) This is our correct answer choice. Firstly, it does not even indicate whether these voters pay taxes or not so its pretty much useless. Secondly, we do not care about their opinions on increasing taxes (especially if we don't even know if they pay them!) so this AC does nothing to weaken the argument.

E) This also weakens the city Councillors argument by pointing to all the Greenville residents who DO pay taxes, i.e the people who are intended to benefit from the subsidy. So, if they raised prices to the point where it need not be subsidized, this group of people would now be worse off because they'd be paying more if they use the bus. Furthermore this answer choice also tells us that those who live outside the city and commute to work inside the city are actually paying taxes, which means they're not free-riding and the councillors argument is pretty much wrecked.

Hope this helps!

HopefullyHLS

@Logician said:

D) This is our correct answer choice. Firstly, it does not even indicate whether these voters pay taxes or not so its pretty much useless. Secondly, we do not care about their opinions on increasing taxes (especially if we don't even know if they pay them!) so this AC does nothing to weaken the argument.

Hope this helps!

My reasoning for D is a bit different: the stimulus is not even talking about increasing taxes! It's talking about increasing the bus fares (means the part of the price which is paid by the citizens)!

If the total price is, let's say, $2, and $0.4 (=20%) is covered by taxes, then the bus fare price paid by the citizens is $1.6. Now if the cost of service is $1.8, then the bus fare must be increased by $0.2, so that it covers the cost of service. The new tax subsidy would actually only be $0.2 (=10%) now, so I don't see a hint why the local taxes should be increased...