Critical Reasoning

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.

Ill go with D.

A. The government has no current need for helium.

Stockpiling means supply stored for future use. Option A discusses current need. So if we negate this and say government has current need for helium it would be irrelevant to our discussion since we our considering the excess helium stored for future use.
However if A said the government has no future need for helium then this option would be a strong contender.

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 conclusion is saying by selling the helium the government will have sufficient money to reduce not only the helium debt but also the overall debt. So if we negate this statement and say the 25% of helium debt is not a significant portion of government's Total debt our conclusion will not fall apart because in this case the money the government receives by selling the helium will still be sufficient to reduce both the debts.
Hence this option has no effect.

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

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

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

The government is assuming that if they sell the helium at the current price, they would be able to cover up the helium debts.
But what if this decision to sell the helium results in a drop in prices for helium. In this case the government will not be able to cover up for the debts.
Hence if we negate D our conclusion falls apart.

My answer E

I feel D says that Helium cost falls after Government sells Helium.That might as well mean that government will not be affected due to sales in Helium but rather the parties which are planning to trade Helium further might incure losses.Please clarify me if am thinking in the wrong direction.

I have chosen E because the additional costs might as well add to the debt of the government and reduce the advantage of reducing the debts as expected by the government.
I feel E is an assumption.

Please correct me if am wrong.

IMO B, since the govt's plan to raise taxes to reduce the overall debt is goverened by the stance they take on helium, which means that helium stockpiling and the costs its currently incurring is a significant portion of the debt which can be reduced by selling the helium and hence tax raises could be avoided.

i could be totally wrong in my thinking here, please share your views.
Thanks.

My answer is E. What is OA?

OA B

I selected "D" as well.
But after looking at the OA and then answer choices I realized "B" says
debt the government has accumulated in Stockpiling helium is not an insignificant portion, I read this as not a significant. My bad, hope not to repeat this.

I wonder about GMAC they want us to be very clear and concise in SC but makes their CR as complex as possible

I'll choose D

We know if the assumption is not true, the argument is weakened.

If D is not true, attempts to sell the government’s helium will depress the market Price of helium by more than 25 percent. That means the money from selling helium is not able to cover the debt related to helium storage, weakening the argument "by selling the helium, the government can not only pay off that debt but reduce its overall debt as well."

B is tricky. If B is not true, twenty-five percent of the debt the government has accumulated in Stockpiling helium is an insignificant portion of the government’s Total debt. As long as the selling of helium can cover the storage cost, not matter insignificant proportion as the overall debt, this selling still contributes the reduction of overall debt, which is consistent with the conclusion.

A, C, E unrelated.

Please correct me, if there's anything wrtong

ronniecoleman wrote: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.

after negating B, one can see argument falls apart . So, B/

showbu wrote:I'll choose D

We know if the assumption is not true, the argument is weakened.

If D is not true, attempts to sell the government’s helium will depress the market Price of helium by more than 25 percent. That means the money from selling helium is not able to cover the debt related to helium storage, weakening the argument "by selling the helium, the government can not only pay off that debt but reduce its overall debt as well."

B is tricky. If B is not true, twenty-five percent of the debt the government has accumulated in Stockpiling helium is an insignificant portion of the government’s Total debt. As long as the selling of helium can cover the storage cost, not matter insignificant proportion as the overall debt, this selling still contributes the reduction of overall debt, which is consistent with the conclusion.

A, C, E unrelated.

Please correct me, if there's anything wrtong

ronniecoleman wrote: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.

Well the choice says the value will be depressed by more than 25% but by how much ???

The argument says that the new value of helium is worth 25% more than the 'debt' of accumulating and storing it. So even if the value will be depressed by more than 25% there's no guarantee that the govt will not be able to pay off the debt .. as no specific numbers are mentioned.

Just my thought.

It seems to me that the right answer is D