Fiorina: I Had Lobbyists at HP and Used the Tax Code, That Doesn’t Work for Small Business

Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said that she “hired armies of accountants and lawyers and lobbyists” during her time at HP to use the tax code for her advantage, but small businesses can’t do that and that she’s different from fellow candidate Donald Trump because the tech industry “is the most relentlessly competitive industry in the world” on Monday’s “Laura Ingraham Show.”

Fiorina said that Trump “is the system. He has made billions of dollars buying access and influence from politicians. He freely admits it.” Ingraham then cut in to say that HP had lobbyists as well.

Fiorina responded, “Of course they did.” She added, “[T]he 73,000-page tax code, you bet I hired armies of accountants and lawyers and lobbyists, to make all that complexity work for HP and Compaq, but the nine-person real estate firm I started out in, cannot. So, they’re going out of business. And the family-owned auto body shop that Frank started out driving a tow truck for, they’re not. So, they’re going out of business. And when those kinds of businesses go out of business, the middle class gets crushed. That’s exactly right.”

She continued, “On the other hand, Laura, here’s a big difference between Donald Trump and I, Donald Trump has made billions of dollars personally, buying people inside the system. He freely admits it. Technology, the industry I’ve been in all my life, it is the most relentlessly competitive industry in the world. It is the least regulated industry, in the world. You’ve got to compete day, after day, after day, and that’s why people have come to expect so much from technology.”

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