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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.

-Barney Frank

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The People Who Started

Barney Frank

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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.

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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.

Going Before An Audience Of People Who Expect You To Be Funny Is Tough. Going Before An Audience That Expect You To Be Boring, And Then Being A Little Funny, Is Much Easier. I Prefer Easier.

Well, Many Of Us Believe That Excessive Media Concentration Is A Subject That Ought To Be Addressed, And It Is, Of Course, The Intention Of The Majority Party Not To Allow That To Be Discussed.

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Nothing In The World Is As Mobile As Capital. It Can Move Anywhere In The World Instantaneously.

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.

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The Most Active People In The Country Know Different Things, And Because Each One Tends To Hear Mostly And Deal Mostly With People With Whom They Agree, They Are Reinforced Not Simply In The Conviction That They Are Right, Which Is Totally Appropriate, But That They Are The Majority. So You Have Both Sides, The Left And The Right, Thinking That The Majority Of The Country Is Really With Them.

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I Don't Think Donald Trump Is The Right Person Because I Very Much Disagree With Him.

Regarding Homophobia In General, The Good News Is That There Is A Lot Less Of It Than There Used To Be. The Bad News Is That It Ever Existed In The First Place, And The Worse News Is That It Remains Far Stronger Than Is Healthy For A Society Dedicated In Theory To Equality Under The Law.

Equality Under The Law

While I Was Pleasantly Surprised By The Relatively High Number Of Jobs Created In April, The Fact Is That Job Creation During This Recovery Period Has Significantly Lagged Both Historical Experience In Recovery, And The Projections Of The Bush Administration.

Ronald Reagan Got A Lot Of Democrats. I Wish He Hadn`t. I Got To Congress With Reagan Coming To The Whitehouse. The Reagan Program, A Very Radical One, A Very Drastic One Passed Because He Had A Lot Of Democrats. He Worked At It Personally And Also Because Reagan Retained A Popularity.

Bush Senior Used To Say That We Have More Will Than Wallet. So He Urged The Country To Attack Poverty With A Thousand Points Of Light, None Of Which Could Be Eaten.

I Believe It Is A Good Thing To Get Rid Of Gaddafi. But Does America Have To Do Everything?

They Have To Convert Our Agenda Into Something Aggressive. Two Guys Wanting To Be Happy Together Are Invading Their Marriages. Helping A Kid Who's Getting Beaten Up In School Is Promoting Homosexuality. If You Gave Me A Million Dollars, I Wouldn't Know How To Promote Homosexuality.

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.

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One Of The Striking Things And Donald Trump Is Right, He Gets No Democratic Votes. It`s Interesting There Were Democrats From States Some Of Them More Conservative States That Voted Him, Indiana, Missouri, West Virginia, Montana, North Dakota. They`re Not Afraid Of Donald Trump Those Democratic Senators Because They Know More Than He Knows And Know What The People Want.

I Wouldn't Want [gay Marriage] To Go To The United States Supreme Court Now Because That Homophobe Antonin Scalia Has Too Many Votes On This Current Court.

Legislators Have A Formal Set Of Responsibilities To Work Together, But There's No Hierarchy.

Working Together

And Unless You Think There Is A Serious Chance You're Going To Jail, Don't Listen To Your Lawyer.

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Ridicule Is About The Most Powerful Weapon Possible.

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.

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Moderate Republicans Are Reverse Houdinis. They Tie Themselves Up In Knots And Then Tell You They Can’t Do Anything Because They’re Tied Up In Knots.

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These Two Entities Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac Are Not Facing Any Kind Of Financial Crisis. The More People Exaggerate These Problems, The More Pressure There Is On These Companies, The Less We Will See In Terms Of Affordable Housing.

Affordable Housing

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.

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Practice Of Medicine

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When I Was Here There Was Still A Requirement That Students Had To Swim 50 Yards To Graduate...because Harry Elkins Widener Had Drowned With The Sinking Of The Titanic. And It Made Me Very Grateful At The Time That He Had Not Gone Down In A Plane Crash.

Funny Graduation

We Were Giving Advice For The Single-worst Idea To Come Forward From A Group That's Been Rife With Them, It Would Be This: The Idea Is This: Let's Make The Tax Code Of America Better For Very Rich People; Let's Give Substantial Tax Relief To The Richest People We Can Find. Forget About The Person Making $40,000 A Year And Paying Social Security Payroll Tax. Forget About All Those Other People Paying Income Tax; We're Here To Give Tax Relief To The Richest 2% Of America.

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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.

We Don't Get Ourselves Dry Cleaned.

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Welfare Programs

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People Are Entitled To The Presumption Of Innocence.

Presumption Of Innocence

Serving In Congress Is Like Having A Second Shot At High School.

I Can Tell You About Health Care And Also About The Financial Reform Bill. The Barack Obama, The President Personally And His Administration Officials At His Direction Were Very Much Involved.

The Best Antidote To Prejudice Is Reality.

These Two Entities—fannie Mae And Freddie Mac—are Not Facing Any Kind Of Financial Crisis.

There Are No Moderate Republicans Left, With The Exception Of A Few Who Would Vote With Us When It Doesn’t Make Any Difference,” Frank Said. “it’s The Most Rigid Ideological Party Since Before The Civil War. … The Bumper Sticker I’m Going To Have Printed Up For Democrats This Year Is, ‘we’re Not Perfect, But They’re Nuts.’

Today, Many People Take For Granted The Notion That People Whose Lives Are Going To Be Very Heavily Affected By Public Policies Should Have A Say In How They Are Formulated And Carried Out.

In America, Unlike England, Unlike Israel, Unlike Japan, Other Democracies, We Have Elections That Have Staggered Terms.

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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.

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.

I Hope We Will Not So Characterize Religious People As Being So Narrow And So Biased Towards People Not Of Their Own Religion That They Cannot Even Work With Them In This Common Cause To Which You Say They Are Committed.

I Have This Fear That One Day There's Going To Be A Fire In The Senate And There Are Only Going To Be 57 Senators There And They’ll All Die Because They Won't Have 60 Votes To Allow Themselves To Leave The Building.

The Problem With The War In Iraq Is Not So Much The Intelligence As The Stupidity.

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