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.
BARNEY FRANKLegislators have a formal set of responsibilities to work together, but there’s no hierarchy.
More Barney Frank Quotes
-
-
These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis.
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.
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.
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.
BARNEY FRANK -
This bill is the legislative equivalent of crack. It yields a short-term high but does long-term damage to the system and it’s expensive to boot.
BARNEY FRANK -
The single most important thing you can do politically for gay rights is to come out. Not to write a letter to your congressman but to come out.
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.
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.
BARNEY FRANK -
Martin Luther King said, and it is sadly still true, that one of the most segregated times in America is the hour of worship.
BARNEY FRANK -
There is an irony that the most active anti-gay groups are Al-Qaeda and the American Right wing.
BARNEY FRANK -
The best antidote to prejudice is reality.
BARNEY FRANK -
I don’t think Donald Trump is the right person because I very much disagree with him.
BARNEY FRANK -
The fact that theyre a congressionally chartered group should no more incline people to give to that group than the fact that its National Pickle Month should make them eat more pickles.
BARNEY FRANK -
Regarding homophobia in general, the good news is that there is a lot less of it than there used to be. The bad news is that it ever existed in the first place, and the worse news is that it remains far stronger than is healthy for a society dedicated in theory to equality under the law.
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.
BARNEY FRANK