By RICHARD K. CLAYCOMB

In a recent piece in the Florida Agenda (August 15, 2012, “The Consequences of Run-Amok Liberalism,” by Jason Otero), a gay Republican stated that Democrats have done nothing to address the economy. Let’s look at the facts:

• Provisions in the “Cash for Clunkers” program—which allowed Americans a tax break only if they bought autos made in the U.S.A.—was blocked by Republicans. The number one auto brand purchased under that program was Toyota, the majority of which are made in Japan.

• President Obama’s stimulus package had provisions that encouraged Americans to buy American-made goods, to help create jobs. Republicans blocked that provision.

• That stimulus package has pulled the U.S. out of the Great Recession. Republicans repeatedly attempted to block it, and now claim the stimulus has failed.

• Republican President George W. Bush started wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over a trillion dollars in taxpayer money has being spent for those wars and to rebuild the infrastructures in those countries destroyed by American bombs. America’s infrastructure is in sorry need of repair. Republicans repeatedly block job creation bills designed to make those repairs.

• Republicans say we can’t afford health care for uninsured Americans, and attempted to block legislation which would result in job creation in the health care industry to provide for uninsured Americans.

• Republicans attempted to block loans to the auto industry—now being repaid—which if not made, would have resulted in job losses during a time the U.S. continued to shell out financial aid (not loans) to other countries. The revived American auto industry has been hiring new workers because of an increase in sales of American-made cars.

Otero said the younger generation doesn’t care who gets married: But look up the ages of the young men who killed Matthew Shepard. He wrote we should work on the economy, stop trying to give gays the right to marry, and make abortion illegal again. Hitler took away the rights of gays, and ordered their extermination, while the majority of Germans supported him because he promised jobs. Criminologists in the 1970s predicted that America would become a police state to handle rising crime. Legalized abortion allowed women living in poverty the option to not have unwanted children.

Many of those born into poverty turn to crime because of the lack of jobs in communities at the poverty level.

Republican President Ronald Reagan ignored the AIDS crisis, resulting in an epidemic number of dead gays across America. If you’re a gay Republican, you belong to a political party that includes people who would like to see you put away in camps or exterminated. If you’re a gay Republican, you follow a political agenda that makes money more important than the teachings of the major religions, including Christianity, so you really shouldn’t complain about losing friends in the LGBT community because of your political beliefs, as Otero complained, since the majority of mentally-balanced people don’t want to associate with people who don’t practice what they say they believe.