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Fiorina: Government ‘destroying more businesses’ than it’s creating

by Mark Hensch - 04/18/15 1:20 PM ET

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina on Saturday said America was losing more businesses than it could launch because of suffocating economic regulations.

“The heroes of the American economy are small businesses and family-owned businesses,” she said at the New Hampshire Republican Party’s First in the Nation leadership summit in Nashua, N.H.

{mosads}“For the first time in U.S. history, we are destroying more businesses than we are creating,” Fiorina continued.

“All of the things they are doing up there are landing on us down here,” she added of big government’s actions. “The weight of the government is literally crushing the potential of the people of this nation.”

Fiorina’s remarks come as she weighs a 2016 GOP White House bid. The former business executive drew a distinction between adequate and amazing executives during her address Sunday.

“Managers are people who do the best they can within the existing system,” Fiorina argued.

“Leaders are people who do not accept what is broken just because it has been that way for a long time.”

Fiorina claimed that distinction disqualified 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton from the Oval Office. The former secretary of State lacked a record of “candor and transparency” for voters, she said.

“Hillary Clinton must not be president of the United States,” she said.

“Unlike Clinton, I know flying is an activity, not an accomplishment,” Fiorina added of Clinton’s tenure at State.

The ex-CEO next urged listeners to “reimagine government” before voting in 2016. A world without strong American power, she argued, was a “more dangerous and threatening” place.

“Leadership is not about position, power, title or perks,” Fiorina said of her differences with Clinton and other 2016 candidates.

“The highest calling of leadership is to unlock the potential in others and change the order of things,” she concluded.

Fiorina also targeted President Obama’s tentative nuclear deal with Iran. She said her time as head of a Fortune 500 company had helped her realize how poorly the president had negotiated with Tehran.

“We have never walked away from the table despite deadline after deadline having passed,” Fiorina said of the Iran nuclear talks.

“Nowhere is leadership missing more in the world,” she added of Obama’s foreign policy. “America has not led for quite some time.”

– Updated at 1:38 p.m.

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