The following appeared as part of an editorial in an industry newsletter.
"While trucking companies that deliver goods pay only a portion of highway maintenance costs and no property tax on the highways they use, railways spend billions per year main-taining and upgrading their facilities. The government should lower the railroad compa-nies’ property taxes, since sending goods by rail is clearly a more appropriate mode of ground transportation than highway shipping. For one thing, trains consume only a third of the fuel a truck would use to carry the same load, making them a more cost-effective and environmentally sound mode of transport. Furthermore, since rail lines already exist, increases in rail traffic would not require building new lines at the expense of taxpaying citizens."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
Understand the argument
In an editorial in an industry newsletter, a writer claims that the government should lower the property taxes levied on railroad companies. The primary reason for this claim is that trucking companies use highways and pay only a part of highway maintenance costs but no property tax on the highways, while railways incur a cost of billions to maintain and upgrade their facilities. Another supporting premise given by the writer is that trains use only one-third of the fuel that a truck would use to carry the load carried by the train. So, the writer tries to prove that railways are more cost-effective and better for the environment than trucks. The final piece of support is that even if more people start using railways to transport their goods, no new rail lines will need to be built because they already exist.
Faulty assumptions
• Railway services are comparable to trucking services. The goods transported by trucking companies can easily be dealt with by railways
• The goods transported by the trucking companies need to be delivered only to places that are within the reach of railways
• No other entity uses highways as considerably as trucking companies
Missing evidence
• Details about the quantity of goods transported by trucking companies
• Specifics about the destinations serviced by trucking companies and whether railways are available to transport to those points
• Details about the use of highways and what proportion of that use is by the trucking companies
Counter-examples
• What if the trucking companies’ use of highways makes up a very small portion compared to other entities’ uses, but the companies pay a bigger chunk of taxes?
• What if the railways don’t transport to the destinations serviced by the trucking compa-nies?
• What if the people who employ trucking companies to transport goods have only small quantities to be transported at any one time, but to multiple destinations?
• What if it is cheaper for people to transport goods via trucks than it is via railways?
The essay
A writer for an editorial in an industry newsletter suggests that the government reduce the property taxes levied on railways. The writer provides numerous pieces of evidence in support of this claim. While the suggestion may seem to carry weight, the flawed assumptions and lack of substantiation have left the argument difficult to heed.
To begin with, the chief support employed by the writer to claim that the government should reduce the property taxes levied on railways is to point out that trucking companies seem to have it easy. The writer states that trucking companies don’t have to pay property taxes and have to pay only a portion of highway maintenance costs, and so railways that spend billions upgrading and maintaining their own facilities should be exempted from property taxes. Be-fore making this claim, the author should have established the comparability of trucking and railroad companies in this particular aspect. In fact, the trucking and railroad companies have to pay different amounts of tax precisely because the nature of their use is different. Trucking companies should have to pay only a portion of highway maintenance costs because they do not have exclusive access to highways; however, railroad companies lay their rail lines and use the lines themselves or lease them to another company, but either way, use is private and ex-clusive. Further, the trucking companies should not have to pay property taxes because they do not build any immovable structures on the highways they use; in contrast, the railways should have to pay property taxes because these companies lay rail lines on land and prop-erty, rendering the property unusable for almost any other thing. Considering these aspects, it is preposterous to suggest that the government should reduce the property taxes levied on the railways because the trucking companies don’t have to pay property taxes and have to pay only a portion of highway maintenance taxes.
Another flawed assumption on the part of the writer is the suggestion that railways can com-pletely replace trucking companies in moving goods, and can do so in a cheaper way for comparable amounts of load. While this may be true theoretically, in practice it is difficult to implement. There are many points of difference to consider before evaluating this claim. The
first point is the destinations serviced by the trucking companies. The trucks will deliver goods from point A to point B, but trains will only deliver goods from a railroad station near point A to a railroad station near point B. From the station to the actual destination, the transporters will need to hire trucks. The second point to consider is the quantity of goods usually trans-ported by people who employ trucking companies. Such people usually have smaller loads that need to be delivered to different destinations all over the States. Using trains for smaller loads meant for different destinations is an inefficient use of resources. The upshot is that trains are the best means of transport for those who are looking to transport bigger loads to a fixed destination, and trucks are the best way for anyone looking to move smaller amounts of goods to different destinations. To merely compare the amount of fuel consumed by trucks and trains for a certain amount of goods is not the correct way to determine the cheaper mode.
To conclude, the writer should have provided a case for railways without trying to force a comparison between the trucking and the railroad companies. If he wished to compare the two, he should have taken into consideration the factors discussed above. Had he done so, his argument would have been far stronger than it is now.