Republicans have the upper hand over Dems in debt ceiling negotiations, budget expert says

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Biden has no counter offer so far in debt ceiling debate

Fox News senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram has the latest on the debt ceiling fight on 'Special Report.

FIRST ON FOX: Republicans have the upper hand over President Biden and the Democrats in the debt ceiling negotiations, according to a conservative budget expert.

Richard Stern, the Heritage Foundation’s director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told Fox News Digital the debt ceiling negotiations are now in the GOP's favor.

"What the Democrats have shown and what Biden’s shown is no vision whatsoever," Stern said. "What they’re offering is quite literally a bankruptcy of the country." 

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Richard Stern, the Heritage Foundation’s director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told Fox News Digital the GOP has the upper hand over President Biden and the Democrats when it comes to negotiations on raising the debt ceiling. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Stern warned that the "budget trend lines that we’ve got right now would indicate" the budget is "going to run $20 trillion more into the deficit" and skyrocket inflation and interest rates.

"It’s the kind of thing where I think that what the Democrats are offering, I think it’s part of why they haven’t offered as much of a plan, is that they know that their plan would lead to the destruction of the economy, to a higher inflation rate, to more poverty," Stern said.

The bill passed earlier this week by a slim margin with four Republicans voting with Democrats against it. One of the Republican dissenters, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee voted, said he voted "nay" because has never supported legislation that increases the debt limit at any rate.

The House bill raises the debt ceiling but only one year at a time, while simultaneously saving the American taxpayer $4.8 trillion over a ten-year period, McCarthy told Fox News host Sean Hannity this week.

"What conservatives are offering is the counter of that," Stern said. "Conservatives are offering a vision forward, a vision for the American economy that works for everybody, that builds for everybody."

"And so I think conservatives having had the backbone to put that vision together, to pass it through the House, gives them the upper hand against a party and a president who only offers poverty and bankruptcy," Stern added.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital he doesn’t know if he cares "about leverage," instead looking at the debt ceiling package the House GOP passed on Wednesday as a team effort among the caucus after Biden and the Democrats turned to "hollow political rhetoric" when asked to sit down and discuss the bill. (Fox News Digital)

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., told Fox News Digital he doesn’t know if he cares "about leverage," and views the debt ceiling package the House GOP passed on Wednesday as a team effort among the caucus after Biden and the Democrats turned to "hollow political rhetoric" when asked to sit down and discuss solutions.

"Our speaker asked the president to sit down like 100 days ago, and the president said he would do that or at least led Kevin McCarthy to believe that he was willing to sit down and talk about what’s best for the country, what’s best for American families to avoid defaulting on our debt," Emmer said.

"And then all we heard for weeks and months was really hollow political rhetoric coming out of the White House and the Senate," the Republican whip continued. "And I think you just got to a point, probably a month ago, you got to a point where Kevin McCarthy said, ‘Look, Republicans are the only ones who’ve been leading in this town, we’re going to have to do it again."

The House passed the debt ceiling package under the leadership of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

"And now, well, now we have solved the debt crisis. We have passed historic legislation that would create $4.8 trillion in savings over the next ten years. It's over in the Senate, and they should pass it. Put it into law so we can move on to the appropriations process, which we're doing now anyway, and keep government moving."

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"If they don't like it, if there's something they object to, well, I suppose the president and or [Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer can call Kevin McCarthy and have that discussion with him," Emmer said.

"But right now, just like this entire Congress, Kevin McCarthy and the House Republicans have provided the solution and are leading," he added.