Sascha: The attempt to ban parliament's right to pass directed-spending bills—bills that contain provisions specifically funding the favorite projects of some powerful politicians—is antidemocratic. Our nation's constitution requires that money be drawn from our treasury only when so stipulated by laws passed by parliament, the branch of government most directly representative of the citizens. This requirement is based on the belief that exercising the power to spend public resources involves the ultimate exercise of state authority and that therefore _________.

Which of the following most logically completes Sascha's argument?

A. designating funding specifically for the favorite projects of some powerful politicians should be considered antidemocratic
B. the right to exercise such a power should belong exclusively to the branch of government most directly representative of the citizens
C. exercising the power to spend public resources is in most cases—but not all—protected by the constitution
D. modifications to any spending bills should be considered expenditures authorized by law
E. only officials who are motivated by concerns for reelection should retain that power


CR11751.01
OG2020 NEW QUESTION
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I have to say that the wording of a question like this leads me astray. I see the premise as: "The attempt to ban...is antidemocratic." The remainder of the question goes on to discuss how directed-spending bills are seemingly not representative of a constituency's best interests. I have noticed this phenomenon on quite a few questions, OG or otherwise. Does anyone have any helpful strategies for ferreting out the true meaning of these questions?

Hi Nigina93,

Let me take the shot. Let’s first simplify Sascha’s argument:

Conclusion: It will be antidemocratic if parliament is banned to spend public resources.

Evidence given to support the conclusion: Constitution allows spending public resources only when parliament stipulates so. Constitution does so because such a spending requires top (ultimate) authority and therefore_______

Whatever says Sascha next, it should help him support his conclusion that parliament should not be banned from spending public money.

B. Exclusively parliament (most directly representative of citizens) should be able to spend public money.

Let’s insert B into the evidence and reread it to figure out whether Sascha can support his conclusion with B.

Evidence: Constitution allows spending public resources only when parliament stipulates so. Constitution does so because such a spending requires top (ultimate) authority and therefore exclusively (only) parliament (most directly representative of citizens or top authority) should be able to spend public money.

Among other answer choices B suits best to this role. The usage of ‘exclusively’ in B is justified because earlier Sascha says ‘only’.

C says that Constitution protects the authority to spend public money 'not in all cases’. But indeed Constitution protects it in all cases because spending happens only when parliament wants so. In other words, in all cases only Parliament is entitled by Constitution to spend public money. Thus, C is incorrect.

IMO B

Question Type: Inference
Structure of the argument:
(1)Banning Parliament's right to pass DBS --> antidemocratic
(2)If passed by parliament-->Money can be drawn
(3)If passed by parliament-->It's democratic
(4)Parliament= the branch of government most directly representative of the citizens
Conclusion:
Exercising the power to spend public resources(equation 2) should be passed by parliament(the branch of government most
directly representative of the citizens)(equation 4)

mykrasovski First, it's important to understand our task. Most (but not all) fill-in-the-blank CR arguments are Strengthens, in which we are filling in a missing premise. When we see the word "therefore," we might think that this is the other common type of fill-in--an Inference in which the answer pulls together the previous statements into a logically-supported conclusion--but actually, this one is a Strengthen, too. The beginning of the last sentence ("This requirement is based on the belief that . . . ") indicates that we are looking for support. In this case, we end up with what could be categorized as an Intermediate Conclusion--a statement that is supported by the other premises, but which itself provides support for the main conclusion. Let's read the argument.

Sascha: The attempt to ban parliament's right to pass directed-spending bills—bills that contain provisions specifically funding the favorite projects of some powerful politicians—is antidemocratic.

Conclusion. This sounds like an opinion, so we might guess right away that this is the conclusion. When we see that the rest of the argument supports this point, we know we're right. The author is talking about bills that fund the "pet" projects of politicians. In the US, these are often called earmarks. This kind of spending is often attacked as corrupt or wasteful in real life, but the author is supporting the practice, saying that banning such bills is undemocratic.

Our nation's constitution requires that money be drawn from our treasury only when so stipulated by laws passed by parliament, the branch of government most directly representative of the citizens.

Premise. The author explains that the constitution only allows money to be drawn out when parliament passes a law. Parliament is described as representing the citizens most directly. The author is probably drawing a contrast between parliament, in which members are voted for by citizens in public elections, and other branches of government, in which members may be appointed or otherwise indirectly selected.

This requirement is based on the belief that exercising the power to spend public resources involves the ultimate exercise of state authority and that therefore _________.

Premise (with room for an additional premise). Why does the constitution require that only the directly-elected parliament can authorize spending? The author says that this spending is the biggest or most important way in which the government exerts its power/authority.

Now we want to connect that last premise to the conclusion that banning direct-spending bills is antidemocratic. We already know spending is a very important function, and we know that parliament is most representative of the people. However, those concepts haven't been connected. Answer choice B does exactly that, saying that something this important should be done by the part of government most representative of the people. Note that, as usual for a Strengthen, we don't have conclusive proof of the conclusion. Does this connection we've made mean that these specific bills are democratic, or that banning them is antidemocratic? No, but we have helped the author pull together the support they have provided for authorizing parliament to direct spending.

I hope this helps!
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