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
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.
[Democrats] are trying on every front to increase the role of government.
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.
The people who started the American government, the founders of the Constitution, didn't like political parties but they were forced to start them. Nobody ever created political parties in England, they evolved. And there do tend to be two general tendencies that focus around how much government you think you need.
Conservatives believe that from the standpoint of the federal government, life begins at conception and ends at birth.
I do not believe that the federal government should treat adults who choose to smoke marijuana as criminals.
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.
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.
There is an irony that the most active anti-gay [groups] are Al-Qaeda and the American Right wing.
And unless you think there is a serious chance you're going to jail, don't listen to your lawyer.
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.
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.
Nothing in the world is as mobile as capital. It can move anywhere in the world instantaneously.
Disruption never helps your cause. It just looks like you're afraid to have rational discussion.