Robbing Peter to Pay Zebedee

The Republican Congress is planning to give $100 to every family as a bribe gas rebate. Naturally, the next generation or two is not complaining that this will be added to the debt we have to pay off to finance our parents' and grandparents' consumption habits.

This program is so senseless that I'm at a loss for words. So I need my readers to step up and fill in the blank:

"This program is the economic equivalent of ________________________________"

Leave your suggestions in the comments. If there are more than one, I'll pick the best.

The full story is at NYTimes and MarketWatch. Both report that this is tied to ANWR drilling and sundry spending. In that case, it will hopefully die as a 3rd-rate publicity stunt. The best way for the government to deal with the gas shortage would be to decrease its own spending; that would ease demand for gas, and generally stabilize the country economically. For anyone more interested, we just studied Aiyagari et al's paper on the effects of government spending; available here from NBER.