Best 99 quotes of Barney Frank on MyQuotes

Barney Frank

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    Barney Frank

    A leader can`t move a country that`s not ready. You can`t make the waves, but when you see them coming, you can help direct them.

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    Barney Frank

    Alec Baldwin has done this great Donald Trump. I wish somebody would hire Leslie Jordan to play Jeff Sessions. The only way is to put the two of them out there. it is the most bizarre, pathetic silliness I can imagine at what should be the most serious deliberations in the American government.

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    Barney Frank

    And unless you think there is a serious chance you're going to jail, don't listen to your lawyer.

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    Barney Frank

    Before this learning experience, I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty, the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons, and liberals who supported them.

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    Barney Frank

    Bush senior used to say that we have more will than wallet. So he urged the country to attack poverty with a thousand points of light, none of which could be eaten.

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    Barney Frank

    But here too it should be noted that the President's approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused to do that did we invade.

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    Barney Frank

    But it is also clear that left entirely untouched by public policy, the capitalist system will produce more inequality than is socially healthy or than is necessary for maximum efficiency.

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    Barney Frank

    But on those occasions when I do strongly disagree with the Democrats and I don't say anything, I think I forfeit my right to have people pay attention to me when I say the things that I don't like about what Republicans are saying.

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    Barney Frank

    But when others suggested that the poor should not simply be the objects of these programs but also the subjects - that they should be actively involved in shaping the programs, making decisions about how to spend the money etc. - some of the previous supporters reconsidered.

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    Barney Frank

    Can I say one other thing that`s very important? I`m indebted to Donald Trump for a long time, we`ve had this problem that people disliked government. And the health care bill has shown reminded people and Donald Trump has shown people there is something a lot worse than government. It`s not government. That as bad as they might have thought the government was on health care, it`s now created people that the absence of government healthcare is even worse.

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    Barney Frank

    Capitalism works better from every perspective when the economic decision makers are forced to share power with those who will be affected by those decisions.

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    Barney Frank

    Community action is as valuable a principle on the international level as it has been domestically.

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    Barney Frank

    Conservatives believe that from the standpoint of the federal government, life begins at conception and ends at birth.

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    Barney Frank

    [Democrats] are trying on every front to increase the role of government.

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    Barney Frank

    Disruption never helps your cause. ... It just looks like you're afraid to have rational discussion.

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    Barney Frank

    Donald Trump has done more for getting people to understand the importance of public policy that respond to public needs in an affirmative way than anything we could have done on our own.

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    Barney Frank

    Excessive partisanship is the problem. There has never been a democracy in the history of the world in a polity of any size where you didn't have political parties. Even sometimes over the objections of the people who started it.

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    Barney Frank

    For many of those who had historically supported welfare programs in the broadest sense, it was perfectly reasonable to enact legislation in which poor people were the objects of efforts to assist them.

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    Barney Frank

    For most of my life, I have eaten to deal with stress.

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    Barney Frank

    For the trustees to turn away from the entirely reasonable request of the students that a hearing-impaired individual be made president of the college is a very unfortunate expression of insensitivity.

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    Barney Frank

    I am not aware of any specific provision that mandates any tightening of lending to small business other than a requirement that people who lend and then sell that loan be prepared to take a part of the risk. And I'm proud of that.

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    Barney Frank

    I am very proud of the role I played in getting legal equality for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, and in helping get rid of the prejudice by being visible about it, helping to block the conviction of Bill Clinton of impeachment.

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    Barney Frank

    I believe it is a good thing to get rid of Gaddafi. But does America have to do everything?

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    Barney Frank

    I can tell you about health care and also about the financial reform bill. The Barack Obama, the President personally and his administration officials at his direction were very much involved.

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    Barney Frank

    I do have things I would like to see adopted on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people: they include the right to marry the individual of our choice; the right to serve in the military to defend our country; and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications. I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people's rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.

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    Barney Frank

    I do not believe that the federal government should treat adults who choose to smoke marijuana as criminals.

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    Barney Frank

    I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the Army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.

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    Barney Frank

    I don't think Donald Trump is the right person because I very much disagree with him.

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    Barney Frank

    If Bob Barr (conservative republican congressman from Georgia) caught on fire and I was holding a bucket of water, it would be great act of discipline to pour it on him. I would do it, but I'd hate myself in the morning.

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    Barney Frank

    If people knew of ethics violations, they should have sent them to the Ethics Committee. If you think there was serious ethics violation that ought to be looked at, you don't hold it back for retaliatory purposes.

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    Barney Frank

    If you care deeply about a cause and you are then engaged on behalf of that cause in an activity that makes you feel very good and very brave and you're really in solidarity with all your friends, and you're enjoying it, you're probably not advancing the cause very much, because you're spending all your time with people you agree with cheering each other on and not engaging.

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    Barney Frank

    I had always been interested in politics. I had assumed - for two reasons, being Jewish and being gay back in the late '50s, early '60s - that I would never be elected or anything, but I would participate as an activist.

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    Barney Frank

    I have been mislabeled as a big advocate of low-income home ownership over rental.

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    Barney Frank

    I have this fear that one day there's going to be a fire in the Senate and there are only going to be 57 senators there and they’ll all die because they won't have 60 votes to allow themselves to leave the building.

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    Barney Frank

    I hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed.

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    Barney Frank

    I'm used to being in the minority. I'm a left-handed, gay Jew. I've never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.

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    Barney Frank

    In a free society, a large degree of human activity is none of the government's business. We should make criminal what's going to hurt other people and other than that we should leave it to people to make their own choices.

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    Barney Frank

    In America, unlike England, unlike Israel, unlike Japan, other democracies, we have elections that have staggered terms.

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    Barney Frank

    Increasing inequality in income distribution in this country has broader policy implications, and there is also the growing problem of perverse incentives that result from executives receiving grossly disproportionate compensation based on decisions they themselves take.

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    Barney Frank

    In the debate between those who believe in essentially unregulated markets and others who hold that reasonable regulation diminishes market excesses without inhibiting their basic function, the subprime situation unfortunately provides ammunition for the latter view.

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    Barney Frank

    In the West everybody recognizes the need for a private sector, pretty much, even the one Socialist group understands this now, and so there tends to be debate about how much public sector intervention you think is needed for a variety of reasons, and there are very important differences on party lines that should be fought out.

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    Barney Frank

    I should have voted for the first Iraq war. George Bush did that one very well. I had been skeptical. I was afraid that George Bush was going to treat the first Iraq war the way his son treated the second.

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    Barney Frank

    I smoke a cigar or two a day. I did have a brownie once. It made me sleepy.

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    Barney Frank

    I think there was an absolute, deep gap between consensual relations between adults, which people may like or dislike, and people who physically impose themselves on children or misuse their authority to impose on children.

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    Barney Frank

    I think there were two criticisms you can make of Donald Trump`s involvement in the Health Care Bill. First of all, there were times when he wasn`t being helpful. Secondly, there were times when he was trying to be helpful. I`m not sure which one did more damage.

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    Barney Frank

    It is because the fight against the harshest aspects of unrestricted capitalism is therefore a political problem and not an intellectual one that community action remains so essential.

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    Barney Frank

    It is, of course, further indication that a fundamentalist right has really taken over much of the Republican Party, People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education.

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    Barney Frank

    I was still closeted, but from the day I decided to run for office, knowing that I was gay, I decided that I would, of course, still be closeted but that I would work very hard for gay rights. It would be totally dishonorable, being gay, not to do that. So I had that as kind of a secondary agenda.

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    Barney Frank

    I will tell you, I'm a lousy cook, but I think I'm a pretty good judge of a good meal.

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    Barney Frank

    I wouldn't want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court.