Barney Frank famous quotes

People are entitled to the presumption of innocence.
-- Barney Frank

#People #Innocence #Presumption

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Country #Moving #Leader

The best humor is offered up by the stupidity of your opponents.
-- Barney Frank

#Stupidity #Opponents

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

#Gay #Two #Reason

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Power #Perspective #Decision

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.
-- Barney Frank

#War #Son #Iraq

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Healthy #Efficiency #Produce

Going before an audience of people who expect you to be funny is tough. Going before an audience that expect you to be boring, and then being a little funny, is much easier. I prefer easier.
-- Barney Frank

#People #Littles #Tough

Particularly marijuana, I think is a great hypocrisy. I think frankly it contributes to a good deal of the sense of unfairness you have among younger people who are told they shouldn't do this because it’s got all these negative effects, but then older people are engaging in all kinds of things that probably have a greater impact on people.
-- Barney Frank

#Marijuana #Thinking #Impact

We were giving advice for the single-worst idea to come forward from a group that's been rife with them, it would be this: The idea is this: Let's make the tax code of America better for very rich people; let's give substantial tax relief to the richest people we can find. Forget about the person making $40,000 a year and paying Social Security payroll tax. Forget about all those other people paying income tax; we're here to give tax relief to the richest 2% of America.
-- Barney Frank

#Ideas #America #Years

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.
-- Barney Frank

#College #Expression #President

Ronald Reagan believes in the free market like some people believe in unicorns.
-- Barney Frank

#Believe #People #Unicorn

Moderate Republicans are reverse Houdinis. They tie themselves up in knots and then tell you they can’t do anything because they’re tied up in knots.
-- Barney Frank

#Ties #Republican #Knots

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

#Two #Sleepy #Cigar

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

#Community #Principles #Levels

And I think there is too much bloviating around from politicians.
-- Barney Frank

#Thinking #Too Much #Politician

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Gay #Majority #Minorities

It seems to me that politicians ought to use the same words as other people.
-- Barney Frank

#People #Use #Politician

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

#Thinking #People #Purpose

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

#People #Giving #Groups

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Block #Gay #Bisexual

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Running #Gay #Rights

There is an irony that the most active anti-gay [groups] are Al-Qaeda and the American Right wing.
-- Barney Frank

#Gay #Wings #Groups

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Hurt #Government #People

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Believe #Views #Excess

The issue is not that morals be applied to public policy, it's that conservatives bring public policy to spheres of our lives where it should not enter.
-- Barney Frank

#Issues #Spheres #Moral

These two entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.
-- Barney Frank

#Two #People #Pressure

Nothing in the world is as mobile as capital. It can move anywhere in the world instantaneously.
-- Barney Frank

#Moving #World

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

#Looks #Causes #Helping

You know, when I was in college, there was a big debate: Do unions raise wages? Well, with regard to industrial unions, there were arguments back and forth -- international competition. It is now clear, I think, that whether or not you think unions raised wages 50 years ago, the absence of unions and their weakness that is inflicted by anti-union public policy depresses wages. The fact is that people who are not represented, in the service industries in particular, are the victims of policies which depress their wages.
-- Barney Frank

#Depressing #College #Thinking

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Army #Thinking #Self

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Thinking #People #Say Anything

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

#Believe #Government #Birth

Well, many of us believe that excessive media concentration is a subject that ought to be addressed, and it is, of course, the intention of the majority party not to allow that to be discussed.
-- Barney Frank

#Party #Believe #Media

The left and the right live in parallel universes. The right listens to talk radio, the left's on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality. I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.
-- Barney Frank

#Ambition #Reality #Essentials

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.
-- Barney Frank

#People #Effort #Welfare

Let us not say that we will decide on a political basis at the national level that no State is competent to regulate the practice of medicine in that State if they decide to allow a doctor to prescribe marijuana, because that is what we are talking about.
-- Barney Frank

#Marijuana #Doctors #Talking

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

#Decision #Etc #Poor

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Government #President #Firsts

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Two #People #Political

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

#Yield #Long #Doe

Legislators have a formal set of responsibilities to work together, but there's no hierarchy.
-- Barney Frank

#Responsibility #Working Together #Hierarchy

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

#Israel #Japan #America

They have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a kid who's getting beaten up in school is promoting homosexuality. If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't know how to promote homosexuality.
-- Barney Frank

#School #Kids #Two

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Party #Taken #Yale

They appear to have become so attached to their outrage that they are even more outraged that they won't be able to be outraged anymore.
-- Barney Frank

#Able #Outrage #Outraged

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

#Country #Decision #Receiving

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

#Kings #America #Worship

What's troubling is that the Republicans to defend Mr. DeLay are weakening the ethics process.
-- Barney Frank

#Delay #Ethics #Republican

Most people who are activists and are concerned about issues get their information from sources which reinforce their opinions and give them the facts that they want to hear.
-- Barney Frank

#Issues #People #Giving

There were a lot of Romneys. There was the Romney who was ; going to be better on gay rights than Ted Kennedy; now there's the Romney who checks with Rick Santorum on that issue.
-- Barney Frank

#Gay #Issues #Rights

The problem with the war in Iraq is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.
-- Barney Frank

#War #Iraq #Stupidity

These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis,
-- Barney Frank

#Two #Financial #Kind

I do not believe that the federal government should treat adults who choose to smoke ***** as criminals.
-- Barney Frank

#Believe #Marijuana #Government

While I was pleasantly surprised by the relatively high number of jobs created in April, the fact is that job creation during this recovery period has significantly lagged both historical experience in recovery, and the projections of the Bush Administration.
-- Barney Frank

#Jobs #Recovery #Numbers

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

#Law #Justice #Healthy

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

#Writing #Gay #Rights

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

#Stress #Dealing With Stress #Deals

There are no moderate Republicans left, with the exception of a few who would vote with us when it doesn't make any difference. It's the most rigid ideological party since before the Civil War. [...] The bumper sticker I'm going to have printed up for Democrats this year is, "We're not perfect, but they're nuts.
-- Barney Frank

#War #Party #Years

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

#Home #Low Income #Ownership

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Senior #Country #Light

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Children #Thinking #People

Serving in Congress is like having a second shot at high school.
-- Barney Frank

#School #Political #Congress

When I was here there was still a requirement that students had to swim 50 yards to graduate...because Harry Elkins Widener had drowned with the sinking of the Titanic. And it made me very grateful at the time that he had not gone down in a plane crash.
-- Barney Frank

#Grateful #Funny Graduation #Swim

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

#Thinking #Jail #Serious

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

#Thinking #Judging #Meals

Lawyers are very, very good at keeping you out of prison, but they will sacrifice your reputation and credibility to do so.
-- Barney Frank

#Sacrifice #Reputation #Lawyer

Ridicule is about the most powerful weapon possible.
-- Barney Frank

#Powerful #Politics #Weapons

The best antidote to prejudice is reality.
-- Barney Frank

#Reality #Prejudice #Antidote

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

#Fighting #Aquariums #Community

When community action was put into federal law in the early sixties as part of the effort to combat poverty and social injustice, I supported it intellectually.
-- Barney Frank

#Law #Effort #Community

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Religious #People #Prejudice

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.
-- Barney Frank

#Country #Jobs #Military