Lawmaker: Raising taxes is not the only means of reducing

Lawmaker: Raising taxes is not the only means of reducing government debt. The government’s stockpile of helium is worth 25 percent more, at current market prices, than the debt accumulated in acquiring and storing it. Therefore, by selling the helium, the government can not only pay off that debt but reduce its overall debt as well.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. The government has no current need for helium.
B. Twenty-five percent of the debt the government has accumulated in Stockpiling helium is not an insignificant portion of the government’s Total debt.
C. It is not in the lawmaker’s interest to advocate raising taxes as a Means of reducing government debt.
D. Attempts to sell the government’s helium will not depress the market Price of helium by more than 25 percent.
E. The government will not incur any costs in closing its facilities for stockpiling helium.

Lawmaker: Raising taxes is not the only means of reducing government debt. The government’s stockpile of helium is worth 25 percent more, at current market prices, than the debt accumulated in acquiring and storing it. Therefore, by selling the helium, the government can not only pay off that debt but reduce its overall debt as well.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. The government has no current need for helium.
B. Twenty-five percent of the debt the government has accumulated in Stockpiling helium is not an insignificant portion of the government’s Total debt.
C. It is not in the lawmaker’s interest to advocate raising taxes as a Means of reducing government debt.
D. Attempts to sell the government’s helium will not depress the market Price of helium by more than 25 percent.
E. The government will not incur any costs in closing its facilities for stockpiling helium.

I m confused between B and D, need expert opinion.
sayantanc2k please help

Can any one explain why is B wrong?

Lawmaker: Raising taxes is not the only means of reducing government debt. The government’s stockpile of helium is worth 25 percent more, at current market prices, than the debt accumulated in acquiring and storing it. Therefore, by selling the helium, the government can not only pay off that debt but reduce its overall debt as well.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. The government has no current need for helium.
B. Twenty-five percent of the debt the government has accumulated in Stockpiling helium is not an insignificant portion of the government’s Total debt.
C. It is not in the lawmaker’s interest to advocate raising taxes as a Means of reducing government debt.
D. Attempts to sell the government’s helium will not depress the market Price of helium by more than 25 percent.
E. The government will not incur any costs in closing its facilities for stockpiling helium.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

Lawmaker: Raising taxes is not the only means of reducing government debt. The government’s stockpile of helium is worth 25 percent more, at current market prices, than the debt accumulated in acquiring and storing it. Therefore, by selling the helium, the government can not only pay off that debt but reduce its overall debt as well.

A. The government has no current need for helium.

B. Twenty-five percent of the debt the government has accumulated in Stockpiling helium is not an insignificant portion of the government’s Total debt.

C. It is not in the lawmaker’s interest to advocate raising taxes as a Means of reducing government debt.

D. Attempts to sell the government’s helium will not depress the market Price of helium by more than 25 percent.

E. The government will not incur any costs in closing its facilities for stockpiling helium.

Lawmaker: Raising taxes is not the only means of reducing government debt. The government’s stockpile of helium is worth 25 percent more, at current market prices, than the debt accumulated in acquiring and storing it. Therefore, by selling the helium, the government can not only pay off that debt but reduce its overall debt as well.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. The government has no current need for helium.
B. Twenty-five percent of the debt the government has accumulated in Stockpiling helium is not an insignificant portion of the government’s Total debt.
C. It is not in the lawmaker’s interest to advocate raising taxes as a Means of reducing government debt.
D. Attempts to sell the government’s helium will not depress the market Price of helium by more than 25 percent.
E. The government will not incur any costs in closing its facilities for stockpiling helium.

Premises:
Raising taxes is not the only means of reducing government debt
Government’s stockpile of helium is worth 25 percent more, at current market prices, than the debt accumulated in acquiring and storing it.

Conclusion:
By selling the helium, the government can not only pay off that debt but reduce its overall debt as well.

Let's say when the Govt acquired and stored the helium, it incurred a debt of $100. Now the value of that helium is $125.
So the conclusion says that if you sell the helium, you can pay off the $100 debt AND you can further pay off $25 of the Govt debt.

A. The government has no current need for helium.

We need to worry only about how selling off helium will impact the current debt level of the Govt. Whether selling off helium is ok from other angles is not relevant to our argument.


B. Twenty-five percent of the debt the government has accumulated in Stockpiling helium is not an insignificant portion of the government’s Total debt.

The figure of 25% given here is just to confuse you. It has no relevance and no connection to the 25% increase in value of helium. The option could very well have been "the debt the government has accumulated in Stockpiling helium is not an insignificant portion of the government’s Total debt". It doesn't matter whether this debt is a small or big part of the overall debt. The conclusion only says that "this debt" can be taken care of and its overall debt can be reduced. That will be true irrespective of the relative size of this debt.

C. It is not in the lawmaker’s interest to advocate raising taxes as a Means of reducing government debt.

The lawmaker's interest is irrelevant.

D. Attempts to sell the government’s helium will not depress the market Price of helium by more than 25 percent.

The impact of selling helium on Govt's debt is based on the current price of helium. If the current price of helium depresses because of too much helium supply in the market, it may not sell at the current price. If the reduction in price is more than the "25% that it was extra", selling off helium may not be able to take care of "this debt".
This is a valid assumption.

E. The government will not incur any costs in closing its facilities for stockpiling helium.

The costs incurred in closing facilities are irrelevant. We just need to worry about what we will get when we sell the helium.

Answer (D)

Can you please help me inletting me know if Answer option B for the question is opposite of the fact mentioned in the Argument?

Debt accumulated in acquiring and storing helium = x
At current market price, cost of helium =1.25x
Conclusion - by selling helium, government can reduce it's debt.
Now let us negate D.
Price of helium reduces by 25%
Hence, price of helium now = 1.25x - 0.75x = 0.9375x, which is of course lower than the sent accumulated on acquiring and storing helium, which is 'x'.
Hence in this case government would suffer a loss hence as negated statement destroys the conclusion, the answer to this is 'D'

Lawmaker: Raising taxes is not the only means of reducing government debt. The government’s stockpile of helium is worth 25 percent more, at current market prices, than the debt accumulated in acquiring and storing it. Therefore, by selling the helium, the government can not only pay off that debt but reduce its overall debt as well.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. The government has no current need for helium.
B. Twenty-five percent of the debt the government has accumulated in Stockpiling helium is not an insignificant portion of the government’s Total debt.
C. It is not in the lawmaker’s interest to advocate raising taxes as a Means of reducing government debt.
D. Attempts to sell the government’s helium will not depress the market Price of helium by more than 25 percent.
E. The government will not incur any costs in closing its facilities for stockpiling helium.

E. The government will not incur any costs in closing its facilities for stockpiling helium.

The costs incurred in closing facilities are irrelevant. We just need to worry about what we will get when we sell the helium.

Answer (D)

VeritasKarishma
I understand why option D is correct but I am unable to eliminate option E (even by negation)
What if the costs incurred in closing the facilities are more than the 25% profit that the govt. will earn on selling the stockpiled Helium? In that case, it becomes essential to know that government will not incur any costs in closing its facilities for stockpiling helium.

Please help!
Thanks in advance.