Quotes by Barney Frank

Barney Frank

American politician

Alive from: 1940-

Category: Politics

Quotes 1 till 15 of 44.

• Barney Frank

  

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

• Barney Frank

  

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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.

• Barney Frank

  

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  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

  

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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.

• Barney Frank

  

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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.

• Barney Frank

  

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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.

• Barney Frank

  

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  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

  

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  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

  

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

• Barney Frank

  

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  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

  

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  I'm surprised to find absence of explicit anti-Semitism this time. Was a page missing?
  Source: In response to a constituents angry letter. Quoted in Slate Magazine, November 29, 2011.

• Barney Frank

  

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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.
  Source: Interview with Claudia Dreifus in September and October 1995, published in Times Magazine (4 February 1996)

• Barney Frank

  

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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.

• Barney Frank

  

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  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

  

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