“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 maintaining and upgrading their facilities. The government should lower the railroa

The argument states that while delivering goods, trucking companies have to pay only a portion for maintenance and have no property tax to pay. On the other hand, railroad companies have to pay greater maintenance costs and property taxes as railways spend billions for upgrading their facilities. Hence, the argument states that government should lower the railroad company’s property taxes as delivering goods by rail is more appropriate than by highways. In additions to this, the author cites two reasons to support his point. The argument manipulates the facts and conveys a distorted view of the situation. The conclusion of the argument relies on assumptions for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is weak and has several flaws.

Firstly, the author states that trains consume only one-third of the fuel that is used by the trucks to deliver the same load of goods. And since, this method is cost-effective and also environmentally safe; government should reduce the maintenance costs and the property tax for the railroad companies. This reason is clearly invalid as though the trains require one-third of the fuel as used by the trucks, trains are not cost-effective. The argument failed to mention the other factors by which it can be explained that trucks are far more cost-efficient than trains. One factor is that, trains need large amount of coal for running, but trucks do not. Moreover, trains run with the help of huge machinery which costs more than the machine parts required by trucks. Secondly, the cost to repair trains also cost more than the costs to repair the trucks. Therefore, it is clear that delivery through is trains is not at all cost efficient.

Furthermore, the argument also states a point that as trains require one-third of the fuel required but the trucks, they are environmentally sound. This is not true, as trains need coal and using coal is not at all a good got the environment.

Secondly, the author claims that as the rail lines are already built, increase in trains would not require more construction of railway lines. This assumption of the argument is weak as it is natural that increase in number of trains would increase the cost of maintenance, thus maintenance costs could not be reduced. Moreover, increase in trains would obviously require more number of railway lines to avoid the congestion in the traffic. Is the number of trains are to be increases, then the cost of the maintenance and the costs for upgrading the facilities will be upon the public in the form of taxes. Without unconvincing answers to the question, one is left with the impression that the claim is more of a wishful thinking rather than substantive evidence.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore unconvincing. In order to assess the merits of a certain situation, it is essential to have full knowledge of all the contributing factors. Without much information, this argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.