Sen. Capito: Congress must prevent 'waste of time' government shutdown

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she’s going to do “everything I can” to prevent a government shutdown as Congress battles along partisan lines to put together a federal funding bill that can garner the votes needed for passage.

Sept. 30 marks the end of Fiscal Year 2025, and Congress has until then to pass 12 annual appropriations bills or face a government shutdown. Capito said Thursday she’s working to prevent that from occurring.

“Government shutdowns are a waste of time. They’re a misery march. They result in nothing good and a lot of uncertainty. I don’t think that, at this point in time where we are internationally and nationally, that we need any uncertainty. I feel confident that, hopefully, we’ll have a continuing resolution with some funding bills attached to it at the end of this month.”

Congress has approved three continuing resolutions in the past year to prevent a government shutdown, the most recent of which passed in March. Capito said that of the 12 appropriations bills, three of them have been passed through the Senate and a fourth has made it out of committee with bipartisan support.

“If we can get five of these 12 bills done ... we’d be at about 80% of government spending,” Capito said. “I think we’re on a pathway to be much more functional here. It’s going to depend on what the House does, of course, and how we conference these bills.”

“We’ve had bipartisan margins,” she said, “so I’m hoping we can get at least part of the government funded in 2026 rather than just continuing the funding from 2024. ...

“When you do a continuing resolution, you can’t eliminate any programs that aren’t working or add any programs, so it becomes problematic.”

Capito also spoke about a Chinese military parade held Wednesday, which brought together leaders from Russia, North Korea, India and 23 other countries — but not the United States — which Capito found concerning.

“We see (India) cozying up to (Chinese {span}President Xi Jinping) and (Russian President Vladimir Putin), and it is troubling to me,” Capito said. “They’re large countries. ... We’ve got to be smart with our resources, and we are. We are far superior to all of those countries in our military strength, our intelligence, PSYOPs and everything. We just have to keep the readiness.”