Reid: Tea party has "full control" of Senate GOP

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Tuesday continued to chastise Senate Republicans -- and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in particular -- for holding up the congressional budget process.

"It's been 45 days since we passed a budget resolution, and Republicans are blocking us [from] taking the next step in regular order," Reid said to reporters.

Reid said he has yet to hear an explanation for the hold up from Republican leaders.

"We've heard a lot from the very junior senator from Texas but no word from anyone else," he said. "We've known for years the tea party has full control of the Republican House. Now we understand they have full control of the Republican caucus here in the Senate."

Cruz has ruffled feathers on both sides of the aisle with his brash attitude in the Senate, and he got a rise out of Reid this week by refusing to let the budget process in the Senate move forward. On the Senate floor Monday night, Cruz objected to unanimous consent, requesting that Reid modify his request to move the Senate budget bill forward so that it does not include tax increases or a debt limit increase.

In response, Reid noted that the Senate passed a budget in March after voting on more than 100 amendments. The next step in the legislative process would be a "conference" between members of the House and the Senate, who would hash out the differences between their two respective budgets.

"We should now go to conference," Reid said Monday night. "The senator from Texas was on the losing side... Instead of playing the game according to the rules, he not only takes the ball home with him, but he changes the rules - that way no one wins except the bully who tries to indicate to people that he has won."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday afternoon explained the GOP opposition to assembling a conference.

"The main point is, we don't feel we ought to enable the Democrats to produce the outcome that raises the debt ceiling," he said. He said that before Senate conferees are appointed, there is a "pre-conference discussion going on about the parameters of that conference."