Sascha: The attempt to ban parliament's right to pass directed-spendin

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!