argument237 FLY AW第五十八次作业

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT237 - The following appeared as part of an article in a local Deauville newspaper.

"According to a government report, last year the city of Dillton reduced its corporate tax rate by 15 percent; at the same time, it began offering relocation grants and favorable rates on city utilities to any company that would relocate to Dillton. Within 18 months, two manufacturing companies moved to Dillton, where they employ a total of 300 people. Therefore, the fastest way for Beauville to stimulate economic development and hence reduce unemployment is to provide tax incentives and other financial inducements that encourage private companies to relocate here."
WORDS: 461 (519)         TIME: 上午 12:28:00          DATE: 2006-7-26

Before accepting the author's suggestion that in order to stimulate the economic development in Deauville, the same measures must be adopted as Dillton, I find this argument is not sufficiently supported by the evidence given. The author unduly relies on the implicit assumptions and incomplete comparison, which render his conclusion wholly groundless.

To begin with, the author unjustifiably claims that the financial inducements and tax incentives have achieved their effects, which cannot convince me at all. The author even fails to provide the actual level of the corporate tax. Only a changed rate can say little. It is entirely possible that after the reduction, the corporate tax in this area is still far higher than that of other cities. If so, as for the companies, the measures could do little to attract them to invest in Dillton. Besides, merely from the evidence regarding the two newly-coming manufacturing companies, it cannot follow that they are resulted from the tax incentives. Maybe they have contracted with Dillton before the tax incentives being anounced. And some other reasons could also explain their relocation, such as the local nature resources available are cheaper, or the transportation in Dillton is efficient for delivery, compared to other cities. Thus, with ruling out all the possible alternatives, I am not sure that the measures adopted have achieved their effects.

Besides, even assuming the effectiveness of tax incentives in Dillton, whether the same scenario would also work in Beauville arouses my doubt. After all, we might entirely doubt that there have many differences between Dillton and Beauville, which would undermine the author' suggestion. For example, the natural resources in the two areas may vary greatly. Dillton is famous for its abundant ore contenting the superior iron, which attracts lots of relevant industries here, while Beauville has not such advantages. If so, even the same proposals are executed in Beauville, they can only turn to be futile.

Finally, conceding the facts mentioned above, they cannot guarantee the economic boom in this area, not to mention reducing the unemployment. Firstly, no evidence in the argument convinces me the so-called boosted economic. Even some detailed statistics regarding the current GDP, the total productivity, or the amount of revenues in Beauville are not mentioned. Under such scant evidence, how could we believe that the economic do improved because of these proposals? Secondly, the reduced unemployment also evokes the question. Perhaps the new-coming companies would transfer some of their original staff from other regions, rather than hiring new ones. Even if new staff is needed, the requirement of the new companies may beyond the abilities of our local unemployed. If so, the status in quo could be ameliorated little, and from bad to worse, the new established companies may become the powerful competitors to our local relevant industries.  

Simply put, due to lack of sufficient evidence and a complete comparison between the two cities in the argument, to me, the proposal mentioned above seems too ramshackle to be accepted. To bolster it, the author must provide detailed evidence that these financial incentives do exert their functions both in Dillton and in Beauville.