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Capito lays out legislative accomplishments for 2025

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., left, walks with her staff at the Capitol, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

CHARLESTON – From continuing President Donald Trump’s tax cuts to passing a bipartisan defense budget bill, U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she was proud of the work accomplished by the Senate. But Congress is recessing before extending expiring health care subsidies.

Capito held a conference call with West Virginia reporters Thursday morning as both the Senate and House of Representatives wrapped up work for the Christmas break. Congress is not expected to return to Capitol Hill until the first week of January.

The last major vote in the Senate Wednesday was passing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual funding bill for the Department of Defense.

“We work together across the aisle to pass this bill,” Capito said. “It was a big vote, and it really sets the policies for our nation’s armed forces that not just deals with our security abroad, but also deals with our own homeland security.”

Capito said this year’s NDAA includes $902 billion for the Pentagon, which was $8 billion more than Trump’s request; a 3.8% pay raise for military service personnel; reauthorizations of various defense, intelligence, State Department, and production programs. The NDAA also includes a couple of programs developed in West Virginia, including the Ridge Runner military exercise and the Catalyst Pathfinder technology innovation program.

“I was really pleased that through my efforts, I was able to secure several West Virginia provisions that will help in our national defense,” Capito said. “You know, we have a lot of companies that do defense work with the department and provide weapons and other things, and we want to make sure that West Virginia is a part of the defense economy.”

Despite one of the longest federal government shutdowns in U.S. history beginning on Oct. 1 and continuing through half of November, Capito was able to look back at the last year and celebrate some of the Senate’s accomplishments, including passage of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts, added temporary tax breaks for tips and overtime, and cuts to regulations.

“I think our big accomplishment … (was) the One Big Beautiful Bill or the Working Family Tax Cut Bill. It is a comprehensive economic plan,” Capito said. “We’ve cut money and waste, fraud and abuse as part of the tax cut. Everybody’s going to get a tax cut. Your rates are going to stay where they are, but you have greater exemptions.

“You have no taxes on tips, overtime or Social Security,” Capito continued. “We also have accounts for newborns, we have more help for child care, more child tax credits. All of these things (are) lined up to help the American family and I think it lines up to make 2026 a good year.”

Capito also praised the work of Trump and White House officials on enforcement of illegal immigration actions on the southern border and work on the economy with the consumer price index rising at a slower rate than anticipated according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We listened to what the American people said in the previous election, who said, ‘we want more of our own money,'” Capito said. “We want to get inflation under control, and I’m pleased to report … this morning that inflation is now under 3% average, whereas under the Biden years it was up to 9% and we saw that reflected in our pricing.”

But with Congress not returning until after the new year, subsidies for the Affordable Care Act put in place during COVID-19 are set to expire on Dec. 31 and there are no plans to address the matter until Congress returns from recess. This expiration will affect 60,000 West Virginians receiving health insurance through the federal insurance marketplace, with premium increases expected to go up next year by more than $1,000.

Wednesday, the House passed a health care bill that does not address the ACA subsidy expiration, though there was a discharge effort to force a vote in the House on a three-year ACA subsidy extension. The discharge petition could be the vehicle for ACA subsidy extensions in the Senate. Two similar bills were unable to pass the Senate recently.

Capito said small businesses who provide insurance for their employees through the federal healthcare marketplace will be hit the hardest by the lapse in ACA subsidies. Capito said a bipartisan group of senators are working on a solution to preserve health insurance options but also require all participants to pay into the system in some way.

“It’ll be more choices for people, more individual choices but also everybody’s going to have skin in the game,” Capito said. “There are many people that pay nothing. What’s wrong with a $5 pay, that way we could root out some of the waste, fraud and abuse aspects of it?

“I think there are a lot of really good ideas out there and I think you’re going to see us come forward with those,” Capito continued. “I was at the White House yesterday actually talking with the vice president (J.D. Vance) about this, so this is important to me. It’s important to many people. I know people are paying right now or because we’ve let the date slip, but I do think it will be very topical when we come back in January.”

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com

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