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
I filed the first gay rights bill in Massachusetts history in 1972 in the legislature, one of the first in the country.
The fact that they're a congressionally chartered group should no more incline people to give to that group than the fact that it's National Pickle Month should make them eat more pickles.
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.
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.
What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history.
I'm antisocial - there's no question about it.
If the Bush economic program is as successful as they say it is, why do they keep firing everybody who had anything to do with it? ... an extraordinary confession of failure in the economic arena by this administration.
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.
In this view, the role of the great majority of Americans is simply to buy the products produced, work happily for their wages, and leave all of the significant economic decisions to the capitalists.
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.
There's a lot to be said for not displacing people.
The regulation of medicine has been a State function.
Now, most of the time I'm going to agree with the Democrats and disagree with the Republicans.
I'm a good legislator. I'm a bad some other things.