Stay classy, Bawney.

BARNEY FRANK: “I’m glad you raised that, because it gives me a chance to make a point I’ve felt strongly about. In this terrible situation, let’s be very grateful that we had a well-funded, functioning government. It is very fashionable in America, and has been for some time to criticize government, belittle public employees, talk about their pensions, talk about what people think … of [their] health care. Here we saw government in two ways perform very well. … I never was as a member of Congress one of the cheerleaders for less government, lower taxes. No tax cut would have helped us deal with this or will help us recover. This is very expensive.”

Update: Then again, Bawney Fwank is an idiot.

On MSNBC on Tuesday, former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank doubled down on his argument that the Boston Marathon terrorist attacks make the case for bigger government, telling anchor Thomas Roberts that his reaction earlier in the day was “the only sensible response.”

“Yes, exactly — I’m talking common sense,” Frank said. “I’m saying that if the sequester had gone through, as we had not had enough money, we couldn’t be able to do this. Yeah. I’m making an argument about reality. And I think that’s the only sensible response. We are spending a great deal of public money here. I am glad that we are.”

Frank called it a “teaching moment.”

“And yes, I do want maybe for this to have some people be less enthusiastic about reducing our ability to respond to a crisis like this. You’re asking me am I trying to make an argument to affect how people make decisions about public policy? Absolutely, I think this is an important teaching moment about what we need if we’re going to live the way we want to live.”