Logical Reasoning

PT103 · S1 · Q18 Politician: A government that taxes

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Politician: A government that taxes incomes at a rate of 100 percent will generate no revenue because all economic activity will cease.

Politician's Conclusion (So it follows)

The lower the rate of income tax, the more revenue the government will generate by that tax.

Politician's Evidence

A government taxing at a 100% rate will generate no revenue because all economic activity will cease.

Economist's Conclusion

Your conclusion can't be correct. rephrase: It is not the case that the lower the income tax rate, the more revenue the government will generate.

Economist's Evidence (since)

According to your rule, an income tax of 0% would generate the maximum revenue.

Evaluate

Method question tend to test this set of 8 moves, some of which overlap: - present an analogy - (counter)example to a general claim - rule out alternatives - make a definition / distinction (these relate especially to rebuttals) - raise an overlooked consideration - call out a faulty assumption - show bad implications of P1's logic - suggest an alternate explanation

The economist is clearly rebutting the politician, and she seems to be showing the bad implications of the politician's logic.

She's saying, as a way to show that the conclusion is wrong.

The politician considered an extreme case (maximum income tax rate of 100% would generate no revenue). The economist considers the opposite extreme: minimum income tax rate of 0% would also generate no revenue.

This allows her to prove that "the lower the rate, the higher the revenue" is too extreme a formulation. When you take it to its logical extreme, you get the absurd idea that 0% tax rate would generate the most tax revenue.

Goal

Look for anything that matches, but it will probably sound like it's saying the economist .

18.

Which one of the following argumentative strategies is used by the economist in responding to the politician?

  1. stating a general principle that

    Out of Scope: general principle

    The economist doesn't state any general principles. She just mentions one specific mathematical example of the general principle stated in the politician's conclusion.

    8% picked this

  2. providing evidence that where the

    Out of Scope

    Out of Scope: real world test cases This answer is saying that the economist pointed to society's where they adopted the politician's advice, lowered the tax rate, and found a disappointing uptick in the tax revenue generated by that. The economist, of course, presents nothing resembling that. She just points out that by the logic of the politician's rule, the time when you would get the most tax revenue is when you taxed 0% of people's income.

    3% picked this

  3. Correct

    arguing that the principle derived

    Why this is right

    This is giving us the "wrong/absurd implications" answer we were looking for. The economist argues that the politician's principle leads to an absurdly false conclusion, because she points out that by the logic of the politician's rule, the time when you would get the most tax revenue is when you taxed 0% of people's income. How could you get any revenue if you were taxing 0% of people's income? The only weird part about this answer is the whole "if applied in the limiting case". What is a limiting case? Not sure, but it seems to be legal mumbo jumbo for "pushing a rule to its limit", since what the economist is doing is looking at the lower extreme of the politician's rule

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

    81% picked this

  4. undermining the credibility of the

    Out of Scope: openly questioning

    This doesn't match the evidence at all. The economist says "that would mean an income tax of 0 percent would generate the max revenue". That is a dry, neutral, mathematical claim. According to this answer, the economist's premise was a direct accusation that the politician doesn't understand economics. Sure, the economist is disagreeing with the politician's conclusion, which is economically related, so the economist definitely thinks the politician is wrong about at least one idea within economics. But all that is off the page. We can infer that the economist would agree that the politician misunderstands the economic relationship between tax rates and tax revenue at least somewhat. But there is no explicit premise where the economist says, "I don't think you know what you'er talking about".

    1% picked this

  5. attacking the politician’s argument by

    Doesn't Attack Premise

    Almost every Method question with 2-Speakers has this trap answer, in which they accuse the 2nd speaker of doing the incredibly-rare move of questioning whether a premise is true. The economist doesn't dispute the politician's first sentence (his premise). She just takes issue with his conclusion.

    7% picked this

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