Barney Frank: “I have served here 26 years. Eight years before that I was in the State legislature. And before that, I studied…”

“I have served here 26 years. Eight years before that I was in the State legislature. And before that, I studied legislatures. They are a subject of fascination to me because I believe deeply in democracy. I have never seen democracy so degraded in a purportedly legitimate institution as by this bill today. It is solely intended to allow Members of your party, Mr. Speaker, to pretend to be for an increase in the minimum wage to get them safely past an election. There are plenty of ways, if they were really for increasing the minimum wage, they could join and give us the majority to do it. But you are allowing them to be dishonest. This proposal that links the estate tax and the minimum wage in a bill that you know is not going to pass the Senate is the most ethically repugnant, intellectually dishonest, morally bankrupt ploy I have ever seen in a legislative body. For you, Mr. Speaker, and your party to perpetrate this conscious, deliberate deception, not just on the American people, but particularly on the poorest and hardest working among them, is something I would have thought previously even you would have been ashamed to do. Apparently, shame has become entirely irrelevant to you and your party.”