Iacocca Tips Youth After Skipping Tab

Lee A. Iacocca told students at Johns Hopkins University that they will be forced to pay bills left by his generation.

“My generation did something to yours that was never done to us or to any other generation,” Iacocca said Thursday at a commencement speech. “We didn’t pay our bills.”

Iacocca said today’s graduates are saddled with a $4-trillion debt. Interest alone is 10 times what the government spent on education and twice that spent on poverty programs, he said.

“You have to start digging yourself out,” he said. “What’s at stake is the country’s ability to compete in the world.”