How many reasons are given in this paragraph?

Hi.

There are several reasons for spending a significant amount of the government budget on public services. First and foremost, public services are the things such as hospitals, roads and schools, and these things determine the quality of life that most of us will have. For example, if the government does not spend enough money on hospitals, the health of our society may decline. Similarly, if not enough money is spent on schools, our children may not be properly educated. Also, it will be the poor in our society that will be affected more if we do not spend enough on these things because they are the ones more dependent on such services.


The writer has listed two reasons to support his topic sentence; am I correct? Have I correctly embolden the listing signals? Is the underlined part another word for for example to avoid repetition? (The writer has given two examples, one starts with for example, and the other starts with similarly)