CONCORD, N.H.—Former Hewlett-Packard CEO and Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina believes the United States’ high corporate tax rate damages the country’s ability to compete in a global market.

“It’s self-defeating that we have the highest business tax rate in the world,” said Fiorina at a business roundtable here.

Money, jobs, profits and business can go anywhere in the world, she said.

“That’s why we have to compete for every dollar, every business, every job,” Fiorina said.

The tax code is in desperate need of reform, she said, and it’s going to take “someone who understands how the economy actually works.”

“We’ve come to a point where we need to return to citizen government, by, for and of the people,” Fiorina said.

Fiorina said she is uniquely qualified to reduce the size of government.

“Government has gotten bigger every year for 50 years, under Republicans and Democrats alike,” Fiorina said.

She said that the “professional political class” has become comfortable with “the status quo.”

“How long have we been talking about securing the border, 20 plus years?” Fiorina asked. “How long have we been talking about fixing the legal immigration system, 25 years? How long has the Veterans Administration been a sham, a stain on our nation’s honor, 25 years? How long has the Department of Education gotten bigger and bigger while the quality of education gets poorer and poorer?”

“Who benefits most from big, complicated, powerful government?” she continued. “The big, the powerful, the wealthy and the well-connected.”

The “big and powerful” have the means to find loopholes in a 70,000 page tax code, she said, but the “small and powerless” do not.