"It is widely understood that America faces a housing crisis...Presidend Bush's response to this crisis, embodied in the 2007 budget proposal he has put forward, is to make the "worst" even worse." 2/14/06

Frank played a lead role in the successful effort to include an affordable housing program in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac legislation adopted by the House Financial Services Committee

"When the bill was being drafted last week, the two key Republicans, Ohioans Michael G. Oxley and Robert W. Ney, the chairmen, respectively, of the full committee and its housing subcommittee, decided that to lock in Democratic support, they would include a proviso from the committee,s top Democrat, Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, to earmark 5 percent of Fannie and Freddie,s annual profits for preservation, rehabilitation and construction of low-income housing."

"The President has made a pledge to cut the deficit in half. Given the tax cuts and the war, there is no way he can do that other than by savaging well-run programs," said US Representative Barney Frank, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over housing and community development programs. "The way the wicked stepmother treated Cinderella looks wonderful by comparison."

"…and it,s another problem we have in America, where we look about things only for middle and upper-income people. One of the big problems we have in housing now is that it,s too expensive for low-income people…And, frankly, a moderation in housing prices, a leveling off, even a slight drop, for instance, in the Boston area, which I represent, would be a socially good thing."

"We,re subsidizing home ownership. And, by the way, I think home ownership is a good thing, but that,s another problem of public policy, and it,s particularly a problem with this administration.

What we should be promoting through public policy are decent homes, not necessarily home ownership. We have denigrated the notion of renting…There is this notion that people say, Well, if you,re a renter, you don,t care, you,re irresponsible. Only homeowners are good for the neighborhood. Most lower-income people are going to have to rent, and I think by public policy, and by kind of psychic pressure, we are pushing more people into home ownership than is healthy."

Even the hyper-conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page grudgingly termed Frank a "crafty liberal" in a June 14, 2005 diatribe against the proposal to include an affordable housing fund in the pending Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSE) bill that would make changes in the operation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Frank is a leading proponent of the fund.