Principle: If the burden of a proposed policy change would fall disproportionately on people with low incomes, that p...

Skylar on August 4, 2020

@schicago, happy to help!

We can eliminate (B) because nothing in the passage says how reintroducing rock salt as a road de-icing agent will affect the cost of road maintenance.

The principle whose application we are looking to justify is that a policy change should not be made if its burden would fall disproportionately on people with low incomes. How do we know that reintroducing rock salt will create additional expenses in terms of road maintenance? We don't. Perhaps it is cheaper than the existing alternative and would actually reduce road maintenance expenses, thereby reducing local sales taxes and benefiting people with low incomes instead of burdening them. Since we cannot make outside assumptions about the effect reintroducing rock salt would have on the cost of road maintenance, we do not have enough information to select (B).

Does that make sense? Please let us know if you have any other questions.