Brown laments hyper-partisan atmosphere

Gov. Jerry Brown, who is nothing if not quotable, let loose with some acerbic comments Tuesday about Republicans and taxes in a newspaper interview.

Brown, a Democrat still carrying the scars of a bitter fight over the state budget, told the Los Angeles Times’ PolitiCal site that he was fed up with GOP intransigence over taxes. He compared the Republican Party to the Catholic Church he encountered as a young theologian.

“This budget reminded me of doctrines, from back when I was in the seminary,” he told the Times in a telephone interview with reporter Anthony York.

“If you’re 15 minutes late to church, you could burn in hell. That’s how Republicans are about taxes. There’s a fanaticism. They are deeply stuck in a no-tax identity that is almost now, on the national level, a religion.

” ‘No taxes’ is a central dogma in the new Republican church. You can’t deviate,” he added. “They won’t burn you at the stake, but they’ll recall you.”

He did not spare his fellow Democrats, either, who he complained vote increasingly as a bloc.

“It’s getting to be lock step … [and] nobody up here has the courage or cojones to do anything about it,” he said.