PrepTest 153, Section 2, Question 12
Regina: The additional revenue obtained from leasing government-owned(57 more words not shown)
Regina and Amal disagree over(1 more words not shown)
- Athere will be(7 more words not shown)
- Bthe amount of(7 more words not shown)
- Cnew revenue from(9 more words not shown)
- Dnew revenue allocated(13 more words not shown)
- Eleasing government-owned toll(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
My first question is whether leasing the bridge will make crossing it more expensive. What if private investors start charging ten dollars every time people cross the lake?
But Regina is not yet arguing that the arrangement is good or bad overall. Her claim is about where its revenue can help. She reasons that because the new money goes to transportation, it won't reduce shortfalls elsewhere. At first, that sounds reasonable: dollars assigned to transportation cannot also be assigned to education.
Wait. What happens to the money transportation was already getting?
Suppose new lease revenue pays for a transportation expense that the existing budget would otherwise cover. The government could then move that existing money to education. The new dollars still go to transportation, yet education benefits because other dollars have been freed up. That is Amal's response.
What we’re looking for
For the disagreement, I'd look for whether the leases can help other budget areas through this shift. Even if the revenue were small, it could produce a small reduction in a shortfall. Amal does not promise to solve every budget problem.
Working the answers
- A
They are not arguing about whether other areas have shortfalls. They disagree about whether the new transportation revenue will help reduce those shortfalls. The existence of a problem and whether a particular measure will help it are separate questions.
- B
Regina does not say that transportation currently has enough money, and Amal does not need to say that it is underfunded. The disagreement concerns what happens to existing funds once new revenue arrives, not whether the current transportation budget is adequate.
- C
Both speakers discuss the proposed allocation as something that will happen. Neither argues that transportation should or should not receive the new revenue. We cannot turn their disagreement about the allocation's effects into a disagreement about what ought to be done.
- DCorrect
Amal explicitly says that new transportation revenue frees existing transportation funds for other uses. Regina's conclusion—that the leases will not help other budget areas—rules out that proposed benefit. Their disagreement is whether the new allocation leads to this transfer of existing funds.
The money does not have to move twice. One set of dollars can cover transportation while another set, previously needed there, moves elsewhere. D captures the mechanism that Regina's reasoning misses and Amal supplies.
- E
This sounds closer to our initial concern about the overall arrangement, but it is broader than their disagreement. Regina could think the government benefits financially within transportation while denying any benefit to other budgets. Amal identifies a benefit to other areas; that does not make overall financial benefit the issue on which we know they disagree.
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