Photo: LM Otero, STF / Associated Press Photo: Ronald Cortes/Contributor Photo: Marie D. De Jesús, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer

A group of conservatives, including an influential Texas activist, penned an open letter to President Donald Trump this week, asking him to restart the economy and “let Americans manage their own risks,” while decrying expanded government benefits as a step toward socialism.

“Sadly, many state and local governments are not following the personal responsibility approach you advocated,” they wrote. “They are using wrong and confusing data to strip Americans of basic liberties, and to advance tyranny at an alarming rate.”

The letter was written by Tim Dunn, the chair of the Tea Party-aligned activist group Empower Texans — whose political action committee has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Texas conservatives — as well as Darrell Scott and Kareem Lanier, co-founders of the Urban Revitalization Coalition and board members of the National Diversity Coalition for Trump.

The letter comes amid growing pressure on Trump from members of the Republican Party to lift virus restrictions despite warnings from epidemiologists and public health officials who predict the number of Texans infected with COVID-19 will peak in late April or May.

WORDS OF CAUTION: Texas pandemic expert says coronavirus will have 5 stages. We’re in stage 2.

U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, was one of the earliest proponents of a quick reopening of the economy and on Monday commended Dunn’s letter as “well said” on Twitter. He expanded on that comment in a statement Tuesday.

“It’s critical for the health and well-being of our state and nation that we restart our economy,” Roy said. “Our supply chains, health care resources, food channels, energy sources — all of these depend on restart. We can do it in ways to protect the elderly, the most vulnerable, and with precautions for everyone to minimize spread of the virus.”

Mark Meckler, a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots who has since resigned from the group and now runs a group called Citizens for Self-Governance, and state Rep. Jonathan Stickland, R-Bedford, also applauded the letter on social media.

The Texas House’s Freedom Caucus, including Reps. Briscoe Cain and Mayes Middleton, who represent Houston-area districts, also wrote a letter to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday that called for restoring health care and business activity while keeping some protections in place for vulnerable Texans.

“We respectfully ask that you loosen your statewide executive order to the greatest extent possible while giving local jurisdictions the flexibility to respond to local conditions,” they wrote.

Dunn’s letter to Trump says vulnerable populations should be able to continue to quarantine with the support of their communities but that economic activity should also be allowed to resume.

The letter alludes to how the hit to the economy has caused joblessness to skyrocket with a record 16.8 million Americans applying for unemployment in the past three weeks. The lockdown, the letter writers said, has “incentivized” this dependence on the government, rather than “personal responsibility,” and is all part of Democrats’ political agenda.

“Your political opponents are advocating an indefinite shutdown, ignoring the models,” the letter read. “They do so because our national crisis is an opportunity to steer the country toward socialism.”

Abbott has said he will lay out his plans this week for restarting the economy in Texas and on Monday said he will convene a group of consultants to help him make decisions about which businesses can safely reopen and when. Abbott has given few details about how that might play out.

“This is not going to be a rush-to-the-gates, everybody-will-be-open-all-at-once (situation),” he said. “We have to reopen in a way in which we are able to stimulate the economy while ensuring we can contain the spread of COVID-19.”

Mayor Sylvester Turner said Tuesday that testing capacity must increase and hospitals will need to have an adequate stock of medical supplies and beds before local officials can consider lifting restrictions on shuttered businesses.

“But I don’t think anyone can make that decision unilaterally,” Turner said.

The mayor said he has already begun discussing with other officials how to lift coronavirus-related restrictions, though he did not provide any details about the talks. He said it remains too early to pinpoint when those restrictions will begin to ease.

Jasper Scherer contributed reporting.

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