LSAT Question Explanation
PT 105, Section 4, Question 14
Necessary AssumptionArgument structure
We need a major tax cut for the rich.
We urgently need to fix the high unemployment levels. The tax cut would lead to investment and job creation, and without the tax cut we will not get more investment.
Explanation
This stimulus is flawed. The conclusion is that we must institute tax cuts for the rich, with the goal of reducing unemployment. But the stimulus never says that tax cuts are the only way to create jobs. It says that tax cuts are needed for investment, but not job creation, which is our ultimate goal. They're failing to eliminate alternative ways to create jobs and just concluding that we need the tax cuts.
My prediction for this question was that the assumption would say tax cuts for the wealthy is needed to create jobs, or that more investment is needed to create jobs. However, that ends up not being one of the answer choices. That's ok, an argument can have multiple assumptions upon which it relies. We just have to adapt and take what the test writers give us.
Ultimately, we're looking for an answer choice that needs to be true in order for us to conclude that we must institute tax cuts for high income citizens.
Answer choices
This doesn't need to be true. There could have been an even larger recession in the past, that wouldn't affect the conclusion at all. We would still presumably need to fix this recession.
This doesn't need to be true. This indicates a relative relationship between how large a tax cut is and how likely it is that affected individuals then invest... we don't need that.
The stimulus tells us that a tax cut for the wealthy would lead to a large increase in investment. For all we care, it could all come from one individual who was already investing but now has more money to invest. It doesn't have to increase each individual's likelihood of investing based on how large the tax cut is.
Also, maybe all tax cuts, regardless of size, increase likelihood of investment the same amount. That would be fine for this argument. We don't need a relationship where tax cut magnitude grows and likelihood of investment grows at a corresponding rate.
This doesn't need to be true. We're trying to show that the hypothetical future tax cut is needed for job creation. It doesn't matter who has invested most in the past.
This is definitely needed. If this weren't true, then the tax cut would seemingly not be effective.
This doesn't match my original prediction, and note that it almost feels obvious in that it mirrors what the stimulus already said. That's ok, because it's needed for the conclusion to be true.
This doesn't need to be true because we're talking about tax cuts in the future. It also doesn't tell us about the effects of tax cuts for the rich, or if those situations were similar to ours. There are a bunch of reasons why we just don't care if this is true.