Barney Frank Quotes
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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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Well, I don't give it out very often, but I reject the notion that you have to be a practitioner to give good advice.
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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.
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It wasn't until after I was reelected in 1982 that I thought of myself as a long-term member of Congress.
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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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The regulation of medicine has been a State function.
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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.
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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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And unless you think there is a serious chance you're going to jail, don't listen to your lawyer.
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Now, most of the time I'm going to agree with the Democrats and disagree with the Republicans.
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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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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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For most of my life, I have eaten to deal with stress.
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I filed the first gay rights bill in Massachusetts history in 1972 in the legislature, one of the first in the country.
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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.
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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.
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The Clinton tax increase - which was an increase in taxes primarily on upper-income people - not only made the tax code more nearly progressive, it preceded one of the most productive economic periods in American life.
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Today, many people take for granted the notion that people whose lives are going to be very heavily affected by public policies should have a say in how they are formulated and carried out.
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Lawyers are very, very good at keeping you out of prison, but they will sacrifice your reputation and credibility to do so.
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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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As a liberal, I am morally obligated to be pragmatic. What good do I do poor people, elderly people, people who are being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation if I'm not realistic about accomplishing something.
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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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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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There are a lot of ways to mispronounce my name. That is the least common … I checked with my mother. In 50 years no one's ever called her 'Elsie Fag'.