Political Quotes

“I thank the Senator from Alabama for the question. I will tell you this, I was in the real estate business for 33 years. Leverage is essential in real estate. You have to borrow money and put in equity as well to make a real estate transaction work. You cannot just do it for all cash. But too much leverage will destroy you. America has just been through a period where many American homeowners were destroyed by too much leverage. They borrowed more than they could afford to pay in order to borrow for a house. The United States of America is at the point where we have too much leverage. We have too much debt. Our deficit continues to escalate, adding to that debt. I tried to think--when I thought about what I would say this morning, I did not know you would ask the questions you asked. But it is appropriate that you did. I was trying to think of an example we could put forward of a leader in the private sector who addressed a tremendous problem America faced and solved it. You know who that leader was? Lee Iacocca. I do not know how many of you will remember it, but in the 1970s Chrysler was busted. The cars did not work, people did not buy them, they were going broke, they had too much debt. They hired a guy named Lee Iacocca, brought him up from the ranks and said: Lee, we need to fix this company or we are going broke. Lee Iacocca as a leader put everything on the table: benefits, how they made their cars, discipline, rules, everything.…”