Rep. Emanuel Cleaver Blames 'Legislative Constipation' On Republicans

Dem Congressman Blames 'Legislative Constipation' On Republicans

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Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) thinks Republicans are doing a number on the nation's body politic.

"There's no question that Republicans, at least in the House and perhaps in the Senate as well, have contributed significantly to the legislative constipation that we are experiencing in the United States," Cleaver said on MSNBC's "Politics Nation" Friday.

The Congressman blamed sequestration for the country's slow economic recovery.

Though April's jobs report was stronger than expected--165,000 workers were added to nonfarm payrolls instead of the projected 140,000--the month also saw 11,000 jobs cut from the public sector.

"When you start cutting fire and police--public sector [workers]--those are human beings, those are Americans. And when they lose their jobs, it stymies our growth," Cleaver said on the show. "My fear is that the sequestration is eventually going to hurt our chances of doing what the President has worked hard to do, which is drop unemployment numbers."

This isn't the first time Cleaver has used vivid language to voice his displeasure with budget-cutting measures.

The Congressman described a 2011 deal to avoid the debt ceiling, involving $1 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years, as a "suger-coated Satan sandwich."

"If you lift the bun," he wrote then on Twitter, "you will not like what you see."

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