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Barney Frank

Barney Frank Books

Former U.S. Representative

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“You know, when I was in college, there was a big debate: Do unions raise wages? Well, with regard to industrial unions, there were arguments back and forth -- international competition. It is now clear, I think, that whether or not you think unions raised wages 50 years ago, the absence of unions and their weakness that is inflicted by anti-union public policy depresses wages. The fact is that people who are not represented, in the service industries in particular, are the victims of policies which depress their wages.”

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“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.’”

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“I do have things I would like to see adopted on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people: they include the right to marry the individual of our choice; the right to serve in the military to defend our country; and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications. I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people's rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.”

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“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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“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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“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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“In the West everybody recognizes the need for a private sector, pretty much, even the one Socialist group understands this now, and so there tends to be debate about how much public sector intervention you think is needed for a variety of reasons, and there are very important differences on party lines that should be fought out.”

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“Trying to avert foreclosures, once you can't just force the banks to do it as a condition of getting aid, means that you have to put some public money into it or you have to do other things that are politically unpopular. From the macroeconomic standpoint there is overwhelming need to help people reduce what they owe so that we don't get the foreclosures and we don't get people kicked out of their homes. On the other hand, there is great resistance politically to helping people, not all of whom would be worth recipients of the help.”

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“If you care deeply about a cause and you are then engaged on behalf of that cause in an activity that makes you feel very good and very brave and you're really in solidarity with all your friends, and you're enjoying it, you're probably not advancing the cause very much, because you're spending all your time with people you agree with cheering each other on and not engaging.”

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