True to President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to reduce the federal government’s regulatory burden on the nation’s manufacturers, the performance of the first two years of the Trump administration appears to have met with this sector’s general approval. In its quarterly Manufacturers Outlook Survey, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) reports for December 2018 that its “Manufacturers Optimism” level averaged 88.7 percent, up from 64.3 percent in 2016, or a 37.9 percent increase over the past 24 months. On average for 2018, 92.4 percent of manufacturers surveyed reported a positive outlook for their firms -- the highest level recorded in the 20-year history of the survey (surpassing the 2017 average of 91.8 percent). Moreover, NAMs Manufacturing Outlook Index for the fourth quarter of 2018 was at 59.2 percent, the ninth-straight quarter in which the Outlook exceeded the survey’s historical average (i.e., index readings above...(Read Full Article)