Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs believes state should reopen fully now

Apr 16, 2020, 4:15 AM | Updated: 7:16 am

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

PHOENIX – If social distancing guidelines continue to be observed, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona would like to see nonessential businesses reopen as soon as possible.

“Allow retail shops to open up the way they normally would with social distancing you see in grocery stores… businesses are just dying on the vine. We need to take care of that,” Biggs said Wednesday on KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show.

Gov. Doug Ducey said Tuesday that he had asked for input from lodging and business communities in a plan for economic recovery and would reopen the state when the time was right.

His stay-at home order remained in effect through at least April 30.

“If you can do it in a grocery store, for Pete’s sake, [or] at a liquor store, then I would suggest you can do it in a furniture store,” Biggs said.

More than 95,000 Arizonans filed first-time unemployment claims last week, according to the Department of Economic Security. Continuing claims totaled 164,483.

“I think we can responsibly allow Americans to be free and to make these adjustments and I think that’s important to realize,” Biggs said.

Were another economic stimulus package make its way around the Capitol anytime soon, Biggs is ready to vote no again, as he did March 27.

“If they throw in, like they did last time, nearly a trillion dollars of spending that’s absolutely unrelated to coronavirus, that would be a dealbreaker,” he said.

Biggs also cited voting by mail and removal of previous welfare reforms, as other examples, of what would cause him to vote against another potential virus relief bill.

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