The cost of products, including gasoline, presents a “grave concern,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said Thursday, and she is hopeful the concern will get the attention of President Joe Biden.
“I am hoping when he gives the State of the Union next week (on Feb. 7) he addresses these issues,” she said during a virtual press briefing.
Capito said state residents are paying more for about everything, especially energy, with high home-heating bills, and any pay raises are “being wiped out by inflation.”
Those price hikes include such basics as eggs, milk and butter.
Part of the problem, she said, is that Washington spent trillions during the pandemic, contributing to inflation, and will continue to spend more if not held in check.
But Capito is optimistic that compromises on that and other issues could be more likely now with a GOP-led House.
“I think with a divided Congress, we have a much better chance of asking the President to wake up and address these issues,” she said, adding that other action by the Biden administration like “shutting down” domestic “baseline fuels” like natural gas, coal and nuclear in favor of renewables does not help.
“I am not against renewables,” she said, but those baseline fuels will continue to be needed.
The change in House leadership may allow for a “reasonable compromise” from the president on some of these issues, she said, because he has not had to deal with that during the first two years of his presidency, when Democrats controlled both the Senate and the House.
A possibility also exists for a compromise on the debt limit, she said of negotiations between Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Spending must be brought under control, she said, and “we have an opportunity of negotiating about the debt limit.”
But reaching compromises is a “tough hill to climb.”
“I am hopeful that the economy can get back on it feet,” she said. “But we have to have policy changes at the top.”
Capito, who is now Vice Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, the fifth most powerful position in the Senate, also reviewed the committees she is on this year.
They include Appropriations, Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works (EPW), Commerce and Rules.
“I think I am very well-placed to be effective for our state,” she said.