Bunuel
Crumpville City Official: We must launch the new Onion Festival this summer in order to save our city government from bankruptcy. Consultants estimate that it will bring in over 45,000 visitors and $28 million worth of business to our town. Since every business in town pays tax to the city government, the festival will therefore provide us with the income we need to pay off our debt.
An opponent of the Onion Festival could most effectively attack the city official's position with which of the following tactics?
A. Pointing out that the neighboring city of Denton lost over $5 million when it hosted the Asparagus Days festival.
B. Suggesting that the Onion Festival may have considerable costs to the city, potentially more than the amount any increased tax payments would bring in.
C. Claiming that the city's current debt is the result of the city official's bad management of the city's budget.
D. Asserting that reducing unnecessary city expenditures would save the city over $2 million per year.
E. Replying that many of the visitors will come from out of town and therefore provide an influx of capital to the city's merchants.
VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:
If a question asks how an opponent may best attack an argument given, then it is a weaken question. As with any strengthen or weaken question, your goal should be to find the gap between the information given and the conclusion. In this case, there is no guarantee that tax revenue generated from the festival would be enough to pay their debts, or that the tax revenue generated would even balance out the cost to the city of putting on the festival. The correct answer will expose and attack this gap.
Answer choice (B) attacks this gap, arguing that the costs to the city could be more than the amount that they actually bring in from the festival. Since losing money by putting on the festival would mean that the tax revenue generated from the festival wouldn’t be enough to pay the town’s debts, answer
choice (B) is correct.Answer choice (A) gives no information about whether the situations between the two towns are similar. So even though it also implies that the town could lose money, it isn’t as effective as (B) since it doesn’t directly address the conclusion.
Answer choice (C) doesn’t address the argument at all and can be eliminated – it is about the town management itself.
Answer choice (D) offers an alternative plan. While this may be an effective strategy in opening up discussion, it does not directly attack the City Official’s plan and can therefore be discarded.
Finally, answer choice (E) strengthens the argument made by the official since an increase of capital would mean increased tax revenue.