WEST WING READS 08/14/2018 SMALL BUSINESS OPTIMISM AT 35 YEAR HIGH!

Small Business Optimism at 35-Year High

Leia Klingel reports for Fox Business that “small business owners’ optimism touched a 35-year high in July, with businesses setting records in terms of job creation and hiring,” according to a new survey from the National Federation of Independent Business. “In July 2018, the NFIB’s Small Business Optimism Index marked its second highest level in the survey’s 45-year history,” Klingel writes.  Click here to read more.  In the Washington Examiner, Paul Bedard reports that “Federal agencies, led by Labor and Health and Human Services, are cutting Obama-era regulations and saving money faster than demanded by President Trump,” according to a new report from American Action Forum. “As a result, the administration is expected to easily meet the president’s order to cut at least two old regulations for every new one issued.” Heritage Foundation founder Ed Feulner writes in The Washington Times that freezing fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks is a “much-needed course correction” by the Trump Administration. “Not all pay equally. In fact, the poor are hardest hit by higher CAFE standards.”   In The Hill, Charlie Kirk says that President Trump’s trade policies could level the playing field in a historic way. “President Trump has the potential to end up as the most free-market president of our lifetime”—and that applies to open, fair trade as much as anything else.  Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen recently visited California to address the devastation caused by the Carr Fire, Mike Chapman reports for Redding Record Searchlight. "Certainly you learn a lot more coming to the front line than in Washington, D.C.,” Secretary Zinke said.