Rep. Biggs calls for schools to reopen, cautions about debt spending on pandemic

As the protracted coronavirus crisis drags on through summer, Rep. Andy Biggs says the data supports sending children back to school.

Biggs, an Arizona Republican who serves as the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has indicated that the "case fatality rate of a youngster with COVID is literally one in a million. And that is less risk than a normal seasonal flu," Biggs said.

His state has seen a dramatic jump in suicide hotline usage, experiencing "an increase in our suicide hotline by over a hundred percent in the last two months or so," the congressman said. There have been increases in drug and alcohol use and in domestic violence, "and a lot of that is the school thing," he told Just the News' John Solomon Reports podcast.

Biggs expressed concern about the potential of another coronavirus relief package which would heap even more debt on top of the nation's already massive burden. 

"I don't think we should do any more spending on this," he said.

The congressman noted that "according to a report recently that I saw there's still a trillion dollars from the last one that hasn't been distributed," though he said that he was not sure if that is correct. But he said regardless of whether that is accurate, a national reopening represents the correct course of action.

"The best thing for our county right now is to open up our society, restore freedom and instill responsibility with freedom," he said.