The following appeared as a recommendation by a committee planning a ten-year budget for the city of Calatrava."The birthrate in our city is declining: in fact, last year's birthrate was only one-half that of five years ago. Thus the number of students en

The writer in this argument concludes that they will have enough money to provide adults during the next decade with various city facilities and programs. He believes that the birthrate is on the decrease which will result in increasing the number of adults and consequently will result in reducing the funds allocated for education, athletic playing fields and other recreatinal facilities. However, this conclusion cannot be made since it rests on a number of assumptions, each of which can be challenged in one way or another.

The first problem with this argument is that the last year’s birthrate is compared with that in five years ago. However, there is a question about the birthrate in two years, three years and for years ago and whether there is a steady decline or not. May be the last year’s birthday was few or a high birthrate was experienced in five years ago. If it is proved that it is decreasing during all the five years until now, it can be concluded that the birthrate is on the decrease, otherwise it cannot be accepted.

Another problem with this argument is that the writer assumes that through decreasing birthrate there will also be an decrease in public schools population. However, even if it is proved that the birthrate is on the decrease, such a conclusion cannot be made. Maybe one of the reasons that the birthrate is on the decrease is that people have financial problems which make them to send their children to public schools which are funded by governments. As a result, it have to be clarified that the population of public schools are going to decrease, otherwise the government cannot reduce safely its allocated budget to the public schools.

A third problem with this argument is that it is presumed that only children are using athletic playing fields or other recreational facilities. However, it is possible that old people or younge people mainly consitute the community of athletics. Therefor, it is not logical that government omits this budget unless otherwise is proved.

AS a final analysis, the conclusion of this writer cannot taken to be correct because of the reasons mentioned above. This conclusion is logical only if the lack of evidences refererred to are all removed.