Legislator: My staff conducted a poll in which my constituents were asked whether they favor high taxes. More than 9...

Ravi on August 2, 2019

@Minerva,

Let's take a look at (B) and (C).

(B) says, "fails to consider whether the legislator's constituents
consider the current corporate income tax a high tax"

The public would more than likely favor a bill that kept high taxes
away, not a bill that potentially reduces a corporate tax rate that
wasn't even high to begin with. We don't know whether the constituents
think the corporate tax is low or high, so this is why (B) shows where
the argument is vulnerable and is the correct answer choice.

(C) says, "confuses an absence of evidence that the legislator's
constituents oppose a bill with the existence of evidence that the
legislator's constituents support that bill"

(C) would be a large flaw, but it's not happening in this argument.
The reason for why the constituents were considered to favor the bill
wasn't because of a lack of proof to the contrary; rather, the reason
was because 97 percent of them were against high taxes. The
legislator's interpretation of the survey results in the argument to
be flawed in another way (see (B)), but there is no absence of
evidence flaw that is occurring in this argument. In order for (C) to
be correct, the argument would have had to have a premise that said
that there isn't any evidence that the constituents oppose the bill
that reduces corporate income tax and then make the conclusion that
despite the lack of evidence, the constituents would still support the
bill.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions!