Hoyer says following Tea Party demands will thwart budget compromise

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Thursday morning said compromise is the only way Republicans and Democrats will be able to reach a budget agreement, and warned that bowing to pressure from the Tea Party to cut even more will prevent this compromise.

Hoyer recalled comments from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who warned that seeking "perfectionist" legislative solutions fails to take into account the need to compromise with other lawmakers. On the same day that Tea Party activists planned to hold a rally to press for deeper spending cuts, Hoyer said Republicans looking to satisfy these demands are falling into this trap.

"That's the perfectionist caucus wing," he said of these Republicans. "Yes to reducing the deficit, we must do that, but let us do so in a way that honors our values and honors our democracy."

Hoyer said the two parties are close to an agreement, as Democrats have indicated a willingness to cut $70 billion from Obama's proposed FY 2011 budget, $30 billion short of GOP demands for a $100 billion cut.

"Americans are surely thinking, there is clear room to come to an agreement, and keep the world's largest enterprise, the U.S. government, from being funded on a sporadic, uncertainty-creating two-week or three-week increment," he said.

He added that he does not think H.R. 1, the House-passed FY 2011 spending bill, represents American values.

"Cutting 200,000 children from Head Start is not, I believe, a value we ought to support," he said. "Adversely affecting nine million young people's ability to go to college ... is not one of those values either."