167 Quotes by Barney Frank

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.

It was just about the most heartless thing I have ever seen a government do that did not involve absolute loss of life.

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.

That seems to many people an insufficient basis for an impeachment.

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 hope the regulators understand by now there is, I think, unanimity on this committee that they should experiment, they should be flexible, they should do everything reasonable to get money into people's hands because people need money to eat and to live and because that's the way we're going to bring the economy back,

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.

And it is not our job to be the high court of appeals that overrules what courts do, state courts and federal courts now, in a particular case.

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.