Reid rips McConnell for economy comments

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) chided Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for claiming credit for a strengthening economy this week, insisting that the GOP impeded Democratic efforts to jumpstart the recovery.

{mosads}Reid said that McConnell and other Republicans on Capitol Hill did everything they could to make President Obama a one-term president, by opposing all of his legislative efforts.

“In spite of all that, we have been very, very strong in pushing through legislation so important,” Reid said in a radio interview in his home state, specifically citing the Dodd-Frank overhaul of Wall Street regulations, the healthcare reform law and several other measures.

Still, Reid said that he could have had even more achievements to tick off if Republicans had been willing to work together.

“The largest debt we have in America, larger than credit cards or anything else, is student loans. They stopped that. Minimum wage, they stopped that,” Reid said. “If they had cooperated with us just a little bit, the economy would be even stronger than it is now.”

Reid becomes the latest Democrat to mock McConnell over his comments this week that the bolstering economy happened the same time that voters began to expect full GOP control of Congress this year.

But Reid’s comments also illustrate the tensions between Democrats and Republicans, even as both sides have noted that voters want them to work together. Reid has been away from the Senate this week as he recovers from a recent accident, but McConnell and Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) clashed early on in the session over how to deal with a bill authorizing the Keystone XL oil pipeline.