Texas is also facing an economic crisis because of the collapse of energy prices due to the actions of Russia and Saudi Arabia, Sen. Ted Cruz said Monday.
"A significant part of that is driven by the coronavirus crisis and another significant part of that is driven by Saudi Arabia and Russia that have begun flooding the market to cause the price to plummet," the Texas Republican said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
The senator said he met in Washington, D.C., last Friday meet with President Donald Trump and the CEOs of major energy companies and talked about how to prevent Saudi Arabia and Russia from "bankrupting all" producers in Texas and the United States.
"We need to make sure that the energy companies that are facing this massive attack, particularly small independent energy companies have access to capital, that they're not frozen out of being able to get a line of credit to stay alive because the objective of the Saudis and Russians was to bankrupt them all and put them out of business," said Cruz. "That would be really bad for the national security and economic security of our country."
Meanwhile, there is no doubt that the nation must transition into reopening the economy, but the question remains about when that can be done safely, Cruz said.
"We are taking serious and unprecedented steps to try to constrain the spread of that virus and to protect human lives," the senator said. "At the same time, we've got an economic crisis. The economic crisis is devastating."
The more the curve is flattened, the closer the nation can be in returning to work, and the emergency relief bill was passed to get through the period where the recovery can begin, Cruz added.
It will still take a few weeks for the money going to Americans can start coming, but when it does, it will "start to make a difference for a lot of people," said Cruz. In addition, small business funding measures will take a while to show effects.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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