Down the Tubes... any ideas?

Alright.. so everyone knows that our economy is pretty much being flushed down the toilet.. the national debt is growing every day it seems like..and what does our government decide to do? Send out more money to the people..
Now dont get me wrong.. ill take a check that the government decideds to send.. well atleast my parents will.. but how is this going to save anything? Get forreal.. they seem to think that all of these people getting money are just going to go out and spend this money and it will all jumpstart the economy. Now we have discussed this in my business class and we all have decided.. its not going to work lol..
sure there is a chance it could.. something could happen.. everyone could do what the government wants.. like the big idea that everyone should just put it on a huge gas card and keep filling up the car.. but will we actually use the money in the right way? or will we just save it..
will this few hundred dollars everyone is getting be able to decrease the debt that everyone has? I personally doubt it.. i know ive talked to few people who feel the same way..
It seems like our government has dug itself a really deep hole.. and we dont really know how to get out of it.. so we will just throw up some random ideas so that hopefully we wont hit another great depression.. because that would just be awful. so we can all just hope that this works and we will have an increase in good economic activity that will hopefully jumpstart our nation and stop it from going down the tubes.
Any ideas anybody?