Barney Frank analyzes Warren-Brown Debate

The U.S. Congress’ first openly gay member, Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts today released the following statement after watching the first debate between Senator Scott Brown and Professor Elizabeth Warren. Rep. Frank is retiring after his current term ends in 2013 after more than  30 years in office. He has been noticeably even more active in promoting and endorsing candidates he believes in as he moves toward his last day in office. Frank has been a strong advocate for LGBT civil rights.

Following is what Rep. Frank had to say about the debate between Warren and Scott’s debate tonight, as the two swing at each other in a battle could decide which party controls the legislative agenda in 2013:

This debate ended on the central point in this race, which Senator Brown tried to evade but could not rebut.  The fact is that if elected he will be voting to put the most right-wing group of politicians in American Congressional history in charge of the Senate.

 

While Scott Brown presents himself as a moderate, he has solicited contributions explicitly on the ground that he will help block President Obama’s agenda – that is, he will put in power people who will in fact prevent the adoption of virtually all of the public policies for which he expressed support.

 

As Elizabeth Warren effectively pointed out, Senator Brown is a very regular Republican in insisting that deficit reduction come entirely from reducing spending on important domestic programs rather than by following a balance approach of domestic spending constraints, military spending reductions, and increased taxes on the top 2%.  His suggestion that raising taxes on incomes of millionaires somehow hurts small businesses was an ineffective response to Elizabeth Warren’s exposure of his opposition to tax fairness.

 

I was also disappointed in the extent to which Scott Brown sought to make unjustified personal attacks on Elizabeth Warren rather than address the implications of Republican control of the Senate which his re-election would advance.