Fares on the city-run public buses

Answer choices

1. A

   Weakens6% picked this

   Many businesses whose presence in the city is beneficial to the city’s taxpayers would relocate outside the city if

   This presents a new downside of raising fares: many businesses that benefit the city's taxpayers would leave the city. That helps us argue "we should not raise fares".

   6%
2. B

   Weakens8% picked this

   By providing commuters with economic incentives to drive to work, higher transit fares would worsen air pollution in Greenville and increase the

   This presents a new downside of raising fares: it would cause more people to drive to work, which would lead to worse air pollution and more expensive street maintenance. That helps us argue "we should not raise fares".

   8%
3. C

   Weakens12% picked this

   Increasing transit fares would disadvantage those residents of the city whose low incomes make them exempt from city taxes, and all city councilors agree

   This presents a new downside of raising fares: it would be bad for the poor residents. They don't pay taxes but they are an exception where we still want them to benefit from the bus (and other city run services). So if they couldn't afford to new, higher fare, that would go against something we want. It gives us a way to argue "we shouldn't raise fares".

   12%
4. D

   Correct40% picked this

   Voters in the city, many of whom benefit from the low transit fares, are strongly opposed

   Why this is right

   The proposed move to raise bus fares has nothing to do with increasing local taxes, so this answer is just irrelevant to the conversation at hand.

   Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   40%
5. E

   Weakens35% picked this

   People who work in Greenville and earn wages above the nationally mandated minimum all pay the city wage

   Like most EXCEPT questions, the four answers we need to eliminate don't all work the same way. Three of them presented some new downside that would be created by raising bus fares. This answer weakens by saying the downside the author is highlighting isn't a real downside. The author is annoyed that commuters are benefiting from the tax money used to subsidize buses, because only taxpayers are supposed to benefit from that tax money. Well, surprise, surprise, author, it turns out that these commuters ARE taxpayers, so it's totally fine that they're benefiting from city tax dollars. Since they're paying money into Greenville's tax collection (via the city wage tax), there's nothing wrong with them benefiting from tax dollars via riding the subsidized buses.

   35%