Former Congressman Barney Frank offered a scathing critique of today’s Republican Party during a speech in Sarasota Sunday, saying it has been taken over by a far right that is mostly responsible for the gridlock in Washington that threatens to shutdown at least part of the government for the second time in as many years.

Frank, a Massachusetts congressman for 32 years and the first openly gay member of the U.S. House, said Democrats and Republicans, despite their differences, used to be able to agree that there was a role for the public sector in setting the basic rules for the private sector to create wealth. Democrats traditionally saw the need for a bigger public role and Republicans wanted a bigger private sector role.

But since 2008, Frank said Republicans have changed dramatically.

“The fundamental cause of gridlock today in Washington is that the Republican Party has been taken over by a group of very extreme conservatives who have repudiated that consensus and who do not understand the importance of a public sector and a private sector working together,” Frank told more than 600 people at the Sarasota County Democratic Party’s annual Kennedy-King fundraising dinner at the Hyatt Regency Sarasota.

Frank said that when President George W. Bush, a Republican, was in the White House, he asked Democrats, who were in the majority in Congress, to help him pass a bank bailout as the economy started a massive meltdown that rippled through the world economy. Even though it was an election year and there were plenty of partisan reasons to let the economy get worse, Democrats helped pass the stimulus and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, even though they knew they would be extremely unpopular with the public.

The flip side, he said, is when President Barack Obama entered the White House. Obama went to Republicans in 2009 and asked for a stimulus package to help the still-struggling economy.

“They totally stonewalled him,” Frank said. “He got total non-cooperation.”

It was the same on reforming the nation’s financial regulations, Frank said. When he was tasked with writing the legislation to reform the financial sector in light of the economic meltdown, Frank said Republicans refused to participate.