First, a heads-up to seniors on a fixed income. Even if you did not have to file a Federal tax return in recent years, or did, but paid no tax, file a return by Tuesday, April 15.

Why? The Feds are giving away a minimum of $300 to every adult who files a 2007 return on time (no extensions) and who has a minimum of $3,000 in earned income and Social Security benefits. Yes, Social Security counts for this purpose and only this year, so think about filing to get the $300.

What is this giveaway? Why, it’s the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008, wherein the Federal government will, in the main, borrow $75 billion from mainland China, give the cash in increments of $300 to tax filers and separately, to their kids (won’t someone think of the children?) to spark the economy by spending it, in the main, on goods imported from mainland China.

Since the U.S. economic output last year was nearly 200 times as large as this stimulus, the economic effect will be nil, especially if you supporters of terrorism bank the cash or pay down debt.

As the President might put it, anyone who saves money is giving aid and comfort to the terrorists, since saving undermines economic growth and our resolve. By that line of reasoning, we must conclude that the President himself is the most obscene molly-coddler of terrorism.

Of late, the Medicare/Medicaid board of governors, the President’s men, warned that the program and millions of beneficiaries faced a “trainwreck” if the $36 trillion shortfall (yes, that’s trillion, as in a program deficit equal to 12 times government spending at all levels this year) was not eliminated.

If Medicare is an economic trainwreck, what’s the right metaphor for the collapse of Social Security, four times larger than Medicare, and on the calendar for 2012?

I think a new word for a new order of magnitude will be required, and I propose the verb “to bush” to describe a failure of leadership that allows a disaster to strike when imminent disaster is obvious 20 years ago, certainly at least eight.

The directors at Bear Stearns, for example, bushed company stockholders by paying $137 million to the CEO they’d hired then fired, at a time when they must have know the guy had left Bear Stearns bankrupt, and for sale at only a fraction more than the amount paid out to the late CEO.

In Denver, you are being bushed as you read. The state of Colorado plans to spend every penny it will collect in taxes and, in the face of obvious recession or worse, not set aside one thin dime to cover the inevitable spending deficits of years to come. Moreover, our legislative leadership seems intent on giving us a rare double bushing.

Out of one eye the leadership can see the problem of I-70 congestion, apparent to all for 20 years but so far only a cause for further study. Even a small step, such as charging a $5 toll per car for travel along I-70 during peak travel times is rejected even though a toll might alleviate the problem and raise money to reduce a problem looming in the other eye.

In Summit County, our executive leadership is in search of $15,000 to pay for two days a week of labor to reduce the danger posed by a forest that is or will be 80 percent fuel in a matter of months.

We could be spending $150,000 a year if the legislative leadership supported the $5 toll on a trial basis while insisting the monies raised go to fuels reduction. What tourist would begrudge $5 to save their destination of choice?

We’ll never know as the legislature executes a neat double bushing on us, although with the help of the county it’s almost a triple bushing. The county doesn’t have to ‘find’ $15,000 for fuels reduction.

County spending runs into the millions annually, but the county won’t reorder budget priorities and spending in the face of an obvious and looming problem. But in the end, we have no one to blame but ourselves for getting bushed. We even double bush ourselves by voting in short-sighted and self-aggrandizing politicos of all persuasions who bush us in turn.

But hey, you’re getting $300 for no reason. Are these guys great or what?

<i>Marc Carlisle writes a Thursday column. He can be reached at summitindie@yahoo.com.</i>