The leader of Republicans in the state Assembly says that he wants to have public hearings on reopening the state’s economy.

Assemblyman Jon Bramnick says that experts and Murphy administration officials should be questioned by legislators about their actions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Bramnick says that the economic damage of waiting to reopen the economy has been “catastrophic.”

“At some point, government is going to come to the people and say, ‘We want to raise your taxes. We want to borrow money.’ And at that point in time, you can’t look back. This is when we have to make the decisions on the economy and we have to do it in a safe, intelligent and scientific way. But you can’t do it if there’s only one person making those decisions,” Bramnick says.

Bramnick says that he wants to hear from the small business community in addition to infectious disease experts.

Gov. Phil Murphy has said that he won’t feel safe reopening the state’s economy until he can be sure that people are not at high risk of contracting the virus. The governor has said that he hopes to have a better idea about when the state can reopen later this week.