Sascha: The attempt to ban parliament's right to pass directed-spending bills—bills that contain provisions specifically funding the favorite projects of some powerful politicians—is antidemocratic. Our nation's constitution requires that money be drawn from our treasury only when so stipulated by laws passed by parliament, the branch of government most directly representative of the citizens. This requirement is based on the belief that exercising the power to spend public resources involves the ultimate exercise of state authority and that therefore _________.
Which of the following most logically completes Sascha's argument?
Editorial: Our city's public transportation agency is facing a budget shortfall. The fastest growing part of the budget has been employee retirement benefits, which are exceptionally generous. Unless the budget shortfall is resolved, transportation service will be cut, and many transportation employees will lose their jobs. Thus, it would be in the employees’ best interest for their union to accept cuts in retirement benefits.
Which of the following is an assumption the editorial's argument requires?
In 1563, in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio, Giorgio Vasari built in front of an existing wall a new wall on which he painted a mural. Investigators recently discovered a gap between Vasari's wall and the original, large enough to have preserved anything painted on the original. Historians believe that Leonardo da Vinci had painted, but left unfinished, a mural on the original wall; some historians had also believed that by 1563 the mural had been destroyed. However, it is known that in the late 1560s, when renovating another building, Santa Maria Novella, Vasari built a façade over its frescoes, and the frescoes were thereby preserved. Thus, Leonardo's Palazzo Vecchio mural probably still exists behind Vasari's wall.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?