30 OCTOBER 2017 • FOGHORN LEGISLATIVEREPORT By Ed Welch, PV A Legislative Director As a leader in passenger vessel design, stability assessments and refurbishments, our vessels are not only beautiful, they’re also safe and efficient to operate while producing maximum profitability for owners. To bring Jensen on board for your next passenger vessel design or build, contact us at 206.332.8090 or visit our website at jensenmaritime.com. PASSENGER VESSEL DESIGNS: OPTIMIZED FOR PROFITABILITY What Hamilton Teaches Us O ver the Labor Day weekend, I had the pleasure of being in the great city of Chicago. From my hosts’ condo adjacent to the busy Chicago River, we looked down to see vessels of five PVA members offering sightseeing and architecture cruises: Chicago’s First Lady Cruises, Wendella Sightseeing Boats, Shoreline Marine Company, Entertainment Cruises, and Chicago from the Lake. The purpose of the visit was to see the musical Hamilton. It’s a terrific show, and I recommend it highly, assuming you can obtain tickets (they are hard to come by!). Hamilton offered plenty of takeaways. The first: the divisive political debates in the U.S. today are nothing new. The rivalries of the Trump and Clinton factions are no more intense than were those between Hamilton and Jefferson. The ideologi- cal “spins” of partisan cable networks had their counterparts with Federalist and Anti-Federalist newspapers. Scurrilous personal attacks on politi- cians in the 1790s were probably even more vitriolic than those we see in 2017. Another takeaway: In its early years, the still-fragile United States of America had a massive debt (from the loans provided by France, Holland, and others used to finance the American Revolution), so there were constant political worries about how to raise revenues to pay it down. In those days, there was no federal income tax. The most significant source of revenue for the national government came from customs duties on imports. This was ironic, as a contributing cause of the Revolution was hostility to British excise taxes on imported tea and other commodities. Very few people enjoy taxes, and many folks do all they can to lessen or avoid them. Some tax-avoidance