Politician: A government that taxes

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope: general principle7% picked this

   stating a general principle that is incompatible with the conclusion the

   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.

   7%
2. B

   Out of Scope3% picked this

   providing evidence that where the politician’s advice has been adopted, the results

   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%
3. C

   Correct82% picked this

   arguing that the principle derived by the politician, if applied in the limiting case, leads to

   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.

   82%
4. D

   Out of Scope: openly questioning1% picked this

   undermining the credibility of the politician by openly questioning the politician’s

   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%
5. E

   Doesn't Attack Premise7% picked this

   attacking the politician’s argument by giving reason to doubt the truth

   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%