According to Republican talking points, a high deficit means that less jobs will be created.
According to LSAT Logic Reasoning, when making an argument you have to an unwritten assumption that connects the conclusion (no jobs) to the evidence (high deficit). You can also make assertions about statements through formal logic. For example, if there is high deficits, then there will be no job creation. An equivalent statement would be the contrapositive, or if there is job creation, then there are no high deficits (or a balanced budget). You can also say there will be job creation unless there is a high deficit (taking the double negative of "if not high" to mean low or balanced).
Republicans in Congress and the Romney/Ryan ticket have not budged from the idea of renewing the Bush tax cuts without an end date. The tax cuts, in their current form lower the marginal tax rate for the highest income earners. Passed during the first Bush, Jr. Administration, these tax cuts have been a significant drain on government coffers. Along with a prescription drug rebate that borrowed against 26 years of Social Security, you end up with quite a deficit.
They charge that the Obama Administration has ballooned the deficit to such a point that the economy is slowing that jobs are not being created. While Romney and Ryan might not agree on how to slow the increasing cost of the some of the highest additions to the deficit (Medicare or Healthcare, in general), they do have a plan to create jobs. This plan includes keeping the Bush Tax Cut and lowering tax rates to give businesses certainty about the way they can spend their capital.
According to LSAT Logic Reasoning, when you are looking for an assumption, the best strategy is to find the "rhetorical jump" (my characterization). In other words, find out where the argument added a word or concept in the conclusion that was absent from the evidence (IE, if you are talking about dogs and the conclusion says something about Dobermans).
The plan's conclusion is that it will result in the creation of jobs. But, one cannot divorce the deficit from job creation, according to the talking points. This is where the rhetorical shift comes in. Can you use policies like those in Romney's plan to create jobs AND reduce the deficit, or do you have to separate your strategy and create jobs OR reduce the deficit.
But, the ticket has a response the charge that lowering tax rates and keeping the Bush Tax Cuts will not reduce the deficit. Their plan is to eliminate certain tax breaks and/or loopholes that will balance out the gaping hole in the treasury caused by the lower revenues. But, Romney has yet to reveal which tax breaks and/or loopholes he wants to eliminate. Political poison pills like the home mortgage interest rate deduction and renters credit are all fair game, but not expected to be on the chopping block.
In the LSAT Logic Reasoning section, you can strengthen an argument by adding facts that support the conclusion or you can weaken an argument by inserting something that might undermine the conclusion. Oftentimes you can weaken a causal argument (x is related to y so x caused y) by showing that there is an alternative explanation (x is related to y, but q can cause y).
Was it the deficit that is causing significantly low job creation, or is it something else? Could it possibly be that gridlock in Congress over a certain debt ceiling debate created something called a "sequester," whose diversified cuts could lead to a sharp increase in unemployment and a significant decrease in GDP growth? Could it be a possible EU-wide recession? Both of these events could create so much uncertainty over growth and tax rates that businesses might be reluctant to hire.
For some reason or another, regular citizens have become so passionate about kicking out the current Administration that they have a near contempt for logic reasoning or the truth. I heard an interview on the radio recently where a Romney supporter was enraged about the Administration taking out the work requirement for Medicare. After hearing that the Administration was not going to take out that requirement, she responded by saying, essentially, that the truth has become relative and that she trusted Romney more than Obama.
Anecdotal or not, the ticket has used this point and many other selectively edited statements, stamped them on campaign material and spewed them out from battleground to battleground, effectively skewing the truth to whatever the ticket endorses.
