U.S. government should begin reopening economy by May 1, GOP congressman says

Republican Rep. Chip Roy said Monday that May 1 should be the U.S. government’s target date for beginning to re-open the economy.

“We need to come up with a date kind of like D-Day, June 6, and say, ‘look, we’ve got to go do this’ and work together, get governors on board, get businesses on board. Now, we might have to change our life a little bit,” Roy, a member of the House Budget Committee, said during a digital town hall organized by the Leadership Institute.

"We might have to say that some of our elderly stay home if you’re immunocompromised or maybe we wear masks in certain quarters. Maybe we wear masks on airplanes,” he added.

Roy, also a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, said Congress should have “moved capital more quickly” for small businesses to avoid layoffs instead of “wasting time” on the second coronavirus relief bill before the $2.2 trillion CARES Act passed.

“Get capital," he said "Let's get a restart date going and let’s get everybody focusing on that restart and putting some pressure on our health care operations to get it all in place.”

President Trump has tried to balance closing down much of the U.S. economy to stop the spread of the infection with trying to restart it as soon as possible to avoid a recession. 

In late March, Trump had suggested Easter, April 12, as a potential target to start reopening the economy but backed away from that date after the federal government's "social distancing guidelines" were extended through April 30.

Roy also said: “I’d say our nation ought to be heading towards operating by May 1. I’ve got some people here in Texas saying we’re not going to peak until May 6, fine, then adjust it regionally. But then why are we shut down now and we have health care-workers who are being laid off because hospitals aren’t being used. And people aren’t getting the services they need. And it’s going to start domino-ing through our economy." 

He also argued that many people “don’t understand how devastating this is to our economic future right now.”

Essential businesses and services such as grocery stores have been able to remain open in many states during the pandemic while many businesses remain closed. Roy said businesses are "essential" to those who rely on them.

“Every single business in America is essential to the owner and the people who work for it and every single business in America, almost all businesses, are essential to all of us because it works in this connected system so we have the goods and services we need," he said. "So I would have said we need a date, certain.”

Roy referred to the government’s response to the pandemic as “darn close to a government taking” since the economy has been ordered to shutdown.

“This is the government taking a step to make whole those people who are not able to carry out their livelihoods in significant part because government has acted, government at all levels,” he said. “It’s conceptually closer to a taking than it is something where we are trying to stimulate or bailout a company that failed because of some market anomaly.”