The current economic and regulatory environment feels like the malaise of the end of the Jimmy Carter presidency, turnaround expert Steve Miller said Friday.
Miller, nonexecutive chairman of AIG, said on CNBC that a Ronald Reagan-type overhaul is needed to get the nation back on track. "[After Carter] Reagan came in and did a lot of things, including cutting tax rates—both corporate and personal tax rates—tried to slow the growth of regulation that was strangling business. I think that ... would work again now."
Over three decades, Miller has stepped in to rescue struggling companies from Chrysler to auto parts giant Delphi, earning him the moniker "Mr. Fix It." In addition to his role at AIG, he's chairman of investment firm MidOcean Partners.
"Investors I know are afraid to invest in the U.S. in job-creating industries," he said in a "Squawk Box" interview, "because they don't know how punitive the regulations will be, how costly these health-care mandates are going to be."
Aside from issues surrounding Obamacare, the debate over when the Federal Reserve might start raising near-zero interest rates is also a concern for investors and business leaders, Miller said.
"I think the real problem with interest rates is that it's a fool's paradise. It's an unsustainable model for us to assume that we can have massive government deficits and keep rates low indefinitely."
—By CNBC's Matthew J. Belvedere