“This budget is a nervous breakdown on paper,” said Cleaver during an interview on CNN’s Starting Point Monday morning. “We’re still in a recession, we’re still struggling. Unemployment is still too high,” he said.

The Missouri lawmaker said he understood the need for Congress to rein in spending. “We do have a serious ailment as a nation and certainly as Congress,” he said. “We suffer from ‘spendicitis.'” But Cleaver said the president was not “the one who spread this disease” and had inherited those problems when he came to office.