Barney Frank
Barney Frank
Barnett "Barney" Frankis a former American politician and board member of the New York-based Signature Bank. He previously served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1981 to 2013. As a member of the Democratic Party, he served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committeeand was a leading co-sponsor of the 2010 Dodd–Frank Act, a sweeping reform of the U.S. financial industry. Frank, a resident of Newton, Massachusetts, is considered the most prominent gay...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth31 March 1940
CityBayonne, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
Disruption never helps your cause. It just looks like you're afraid to have rational discussion.
Nothing in the world is as mobile as capital. It can move anywhere in the world instantaneously.
Under the Republican provision, you can't do get-out-the-vote efforts if you work in affordable housing, ... There is an extremism here that is not comprehensible except if you know the history.
We will be seeking to knock out that part that says groups that engage in voter-registration and get-out-the-vote activities are not eligible.
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.
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.
I filed the first gay rights bill in Massachusetts history in 1972 in the legislature, one of the first in the country.
Pat Moynihan could write books with one hand and legislate with the other. I can't; I have a short attention span. The slightest distraction would take me away from writing.
There's only one thing you can do in bankruptcy: break your word, break your deals. It allows you to say to the small businesses, who have been catering lunches for you, 'Sorry, we're not paying you.' It allows you to go to the workers and say, 'Sorry, we're not paying you.'
Television is apparently the enemy of nuance. But nuance is essential for a thoughtful discussion.
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.
I am not a great theologian. I know there is a theological concept called invincible ignorance in which a strong enough faith binds you to any facts to the contrary.
I have done a lot of work for affordable housing, rental housing. I understand the rap on me and other liberals is, oh, we push poor people into homeownership. And it's exactly the opposite of the case. We were trying to prevent those kinds of bad loans.
I had always been interested in politics. I had assumed, for a variety of - well, 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.