The following is a letter that recently appeared in the Oak City Gazette a local newspaper The primary function of the Committee for a Better Oak City is to advise the city government on how to make the best use of the city s limited budget However at som

The letter in the Oak City Gazette makes an argument for the Committee for a Better Oak City to restrict its membership to city residents only and predicts that it will make Oak city a better place to live and Work. He supports it with the evidence of recent meetings failing to take important decisions because of objections raised by members who are not city residents and that only those who pay taxes know how best to use the money. However, the argument raises a number of questions which need to be answered to evaluate the soundness of recommendation.

Firstly, there is question whether the objections raised by the non-resident members are actually foolish and that the decisions are indeed important. It may be that the objections raised by them are entirely relevant and are in fact preventing the misuse of funds in the garb of important decisions. Furthermore, there what is considered important by one may not considered so by other. There is need to provide objective evidence that decisions are actually important for the city.

Secondly, there is question whether understanding a city's business and politics require one to be resident and merely being a worker is not sufficient. It may be that people who do not reside there can come up with more objective assessment of conditions in the city. Moreover, the author makes claim such an understanding is not possible for non-residents do not pay any taxes is dubious at best. Moreover, there is no evidence that non-resident workers do not pay any taxes. They definitely pay taxes on their incomes and places where they work are infact part of the city. This makes the argument flawed.

Finally, there is question that by elimination of membership for non-city residents the committee will be able to make Oak city a better place to live and work. The author provides no evidence to support his claim of improvement. In fact it may be even more possible that the committee without any reasonable opposition, will run roughshod on budget to waste it. Furthermore, author in his arguments is showing clear bias against non-resident citizens without any evidence and this leads to a question on the motivation of the author.

In conclusion, there are number of questions which need to be answered before the recommendation and the prediction are considered well founded. In lack of answers to these questions the argument becomes suspect.