Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said Friday that Republicans in the House were responsible for "legislative constipation" that was preventing a full economic recovery.

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"There's no question that the Republicans, at least in the House and perhaps in the Senate as well, have contributed significantly to the legislative constipation that we are experiencing here in the United States," Cleaver told MSNBC. "If we had a balanced approach instead of the sequestration, we would probably have a higher number than 160,000 jobs that were created."

The Labor Department reported Friday that the nation added 165,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 7.5 percent. The new report also revised March's disappointing 88,000 new jobs to 138,000, buoying economic models, and bringing the Dow Jones industrial average above 15,000 for the first time.

Some Republicans, including Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas), have suggested that the encouraging jobs numbers mean that the nation has weathered the $85 billion in across-the-board economic cuts known as the sequester without impacting the economy.

"The jobs numbers reveal that the sequester didn't ruin our economy. So there's that," Pompeo tweeted on Friday.

But Cleaver warned that looming layoffs had the potential to reverse recent economic growth. He also said many Americans continued to struggle in the aftermath of the recession.

"Americans ought to be livid. They ought to be angry. They ought to be getting their pitchforks and marching on Washington," Cleaver said.