Have you ever tried putting out a forest fire with a garden hose? If you’re semi-logical, you haven’t.

Yet this, in essence, is what Congress is attempting with its economic stimulus package, which will provide $600 tax rebates for individuals, $1,200 rebates for couples and $300 rebates for veterans. Add in tax breaks for businesses, and the package totals $168 billion-roughly 1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

The problem is that this package may target too many economic concerns. By providing tax cuts to businesses, the bill aims to stimulate investment. In the same manner, the tax rebates aim to stimulate consumption.

Although this sounds brilliant in theory, our beloved politicians failed to realize that consumption and investment act as opposing forces. Investment involves improving machinery and equipment, whereas consumption uses extra resources to crank out products like plasma televisions and iPods.

Even more confounding is that this stimulus package may not even stimulate consumption. Surely, our congressmen know that the average American is burdened with $10,000 in credit card debt. It is also likely that the same people facing this debt are also burdened by home foreclosures or late mortgage payments.

If taxpayers are responsible, the tax rebate they receive from the stimulus package should go toward credit card debt or late mortgage payments. Perhaps our politicians are hoping that middle- to low-income Americans make illogical decisions.

This stimulus package will not motivate people to go back to work, curbing unemployment. If I had to choose between sitting on the sofa, living off of my tax rebate for a month and flipping burgers during the same time, I would definitely choose the sofa. Tax rebates make people feel richer. A more effective rebate translates into a longer time before employees return to work.

Problems that stem from this economic package reflect the nature of politics: The package is shortsighted and therefore caters only to politicians’ needs this election year (votes). If politicians were truly concerned with the improvement of the economy, they would be appalled at our government deficit, which reaches record levels every day.

This problem could easily be solved in the same way that average Americans reduce their $10,000 credit-card balances: by borrowing less, paying off debt and saving for the future. If they truly want to help the economy, politicians should curb spending with higher tax rates to help correct budget imbalances and discourage credit card debt. But no one wants to take responsibility for a policy like that, especially during an election year.

Past recessions, including the one in 2001, show us that temporary fluctuations in disposable income have little impact on family budgets and spending plans because consumers rationally determine that price fluctuations average out over time. Consumption spending is affected by changes in personal income, particularly those caused by tax policies, but only if they are long-lasting.

What else could we have done to stimulate the economy? We could have invested it in infrastructure and other public works projects in order to increase the efficiency of transporting goods from one destination to another. This type of investment could prevent more Interstate-35 bridge collapses, which many experts say are likely in the future. (Believe it or not, folks, Mike Huckabee championed this idea.)

Another obvious option that Congress considered was doing nothing, and perhaps that would have been the best alternative. Often, government intervention in the market simply makes matters worse. Take the Great Depression as an example. When former president Ronald Reagan resisted temptation to meddle in the 1987 market crash, the result was not a depression of astronomic proportions, but rather a decade of market prosperity.

Although this package addresses short-run concerns and will dazzle voters during an election year, it will inevitably result in long-term problems. Pumping money into the economy typically results in financial repercussions and inflationary pressures, which are already high as inflation estimates that came out Tuesday indicate higher levels than expected.

Let the politicians call it an “economic stimulus.” At least we know it’s really false consumer confidence.

Nicole Puhl is a senior in the John Cook School of Business.