Barney Frank

No tenant has said to me, ``Please let them raise my rent.'' The housing authorities explained this to me: Given the cutbacks that have occurred in the housing budget, they believe they are going to have to raise the rents on working…

That is the same point. If in fact discussions between Members of the House and the executive branch about how to deal with some of these issues, if that is to be subpoenaed and made public, then comparable documents on this side will be…

So, in other words, Washington knows best on that, and that is the one size fits all. That is a fair point that ought to be made explicit.

That is not the argument. The gentleman shifts from substance to this, ``Oh, no, it is not up to us.'' It is up to us. I think I understand the principle. It is up to us when we want it to be up to us and it is not up to us when we do not…

I would expect more in the gentleman's logic that we would propose that people could keep 30 percent of their pets; that would be more in line with the kind of thinking the gentleman has had.

The last 10 years cannot be relevant to my question about 1981. We are talking about 1981. In 1981, under the Reagan domination of this House, Gramm-Latta amended the Brooke amendment to make it what the gentleman objected to. How was that…

I have asked the gentleman to explain to me how that is the fault of the Democrats. Would he explain to me, I will be glad to yield to him, how was the fact that the Reagan budget of 1981 turned the Brooke amendment from a tenant…

As I understand the manager's amendment, which we did not get much time to look at, instead did an excellent job of analyzing it, the manager's amendment does two things. First of all, it does a revised version of the Brooke amendment, and…

I would modify that to the wing that expressed they trusted Hamas more than the American Government.

No, I follow the gentleman's example, and I ask the Chair to please restrain the gentleman. The gentleman gets up, makes insulting remarks, refuses to yield and then tries to interrupt me when I am speaking. I am simply responding as he…

Typical of the hit-and-run tactics of the gentleman, to make abusive remarks and then refuse to yield so I could respond.

I hope I have better luck getting a straight answer. When the gentleman said that it was the liberals who controlled Congress in 1982 that forced Ronald Reagan to have a tax increase, does he include in that the man who was then chairman…

That is very reassuring because that gives us two chances to kill it: one with better minds; and, two, with the Senate as apparently an alternative line of defense there.

The previous remarks highlight the disconnect between reality and what the opponents are saying. There is now on the books such a mandate. The gentleman acts as if this amendment would create it. The law now says, and has for 10 years…

Not only is there no means test, there is an antimeans test. The more money you are making under the program generally, the more you will get. So it is the reverse. The wealthier you are, the more prosperous, the bigger your crop…

I acknowledge this is what Ronald Reagan did. I would point out by the standards of the current group, Ronald Reagan was a model of lucidity, reasonableness and logic. That is why I prefer the Reagan program. I look nostalgically back on…

This is the anti-means tested entitlement. It is an entitlement, and the more money you make, the more you get. I thank the gentleman from Missouri for pointing out I understated things. The gentleman from Missouri may be one of the few…

The argument we hear against auctioning off the spectrum to the broadcasters, as we have just heard from my friend from Louisiana, after all, they operate with public interest obligations. I have been here with him 15 years, and that is…

I think if we have the top line number and people can calculate the percentages, that is fine. Mr. Chairman, let me say, as I recall these debates, and the gentleman from Washington has been in them as well, we never debate more than the…

Amendment No. 5 offered by Mr. Frank of Massachusetts: Page 10, after line 17, inset the following: SEC. 308. DISCLOSURE OF ANNUAL INTELLIGENCE BUDGET. As of October 1, 1995, and for fiscal year 1996, and in each year thereafter, the…

I do think that when we do that kind of accounting, when we say that a failure to keep up with inflation is a cut, it should not just be to the benefit of the intelligence community, it ought to be relevant to Medicare and everything else…

I want to say that to say that you are sorry that the East Timor situation is a victim of dilatory tactics seems to me an example of the kind of disproportion we can get into. We are talking about repression. Hurt feelings between…

I do not regard it as an acceptable trade-off that you cut off debate time to have a quorum call. I do not think cutting debate on important amendments is an acceptable defense of a very arbitrary and unfair rule.

I took specific offense to the deliberately bigoted and belittling form of words that he chose to use.

The defense of a bigoted remark, and it was one of several remarks, makes even less sense than I had expected. I am talking about the formulation. It was bigoted, and I would hope it would not be repeated.