Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday dismissed the idea of modern-day reparations for slavery, arguing that civil rights legislation and former President Barack Obama’s election show they are unnecessary.

“I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago for whom none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea,” McConnell told reporters at a press conference.

The senator then listed the ways in which he felt America’s slave-holding past has been addressed already.

“We’ve tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We’ve elected an African American president,” he said. “I think we’re always a work in progress in this country, but no one currently alive was responsible for that, and I don’t think we should be trying to figure out how to compensate for it.”