Some years ago, as I was hiking down off a remote Montana mountain during a November blizzard, I ran into a couple of hunters who were looking for a missing buddy. When the fellow who was lost failed to turn up by dark, a friend and I went back up on the mountain with our flashlights to find him.

After an hour or so of climbing, we cut the missing hunter’s tracks in the thigh-deep snow and followed him as he made mistake after mistake. He went uphill when he should have gone down, he walked into deadfall tangles that he could have avoided, and he dropped straight into nasty ravines he could have easily gone around. Worst of all, he kept plowing blindly ahead when it would have been far safer, and far smarter, for him to turn around and follow his tracks back to his vehicle.

I’d never seen such a clear example of panic overriding common sense. It was almost as if the lost hunter was incapable of making sound decisions.

Sadly, I’m starting to see that same kind of flawed decision-making from Congress.

As a Montanan, and a lifelong sportsman, I’ve found myself in a fair number of scrapes over the years. I’ve been stalked by mountain lions, and attacked by a grizzly bear, and forced to swim across a wide, frigid river in my waders after getting blindsided by a huge chunk of floating ice. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my travails, it’s that you can’t flail around when you’re in trouble. You have to come up with a plan that gives you the best chance of walking away in one piece, and then you need to execute it perfectly. All of which begins with an accurate assessment of the situation and the threat.

So what do we know right now? Well, for starters, we know that we’re in the midst of a pandemic that has infected more than 1.5 million Americans and killed more than 93,000 of our fellow citizens.

We know that our economy has taken a massive hit, with more than 20 million jobs lost in April alone.

We know that we have to find some way to hang on until we come up with a vaccine or a highly effective treatment regimen to control the pandemic.

And we know that our current economic stimulus response looks less like a reasoned, rational approach to the coronavirus and more like the federal government throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall and hoping that some of it sticks.

We’ve also learned that our executive branch is struggling to come up with a coherent response, and that Congress is as divided and polarized as it has been in our lifetimes, and that a not-insignificant portion of our population has renounced science, medicine and logic in favor of fantastical thinking flavored with angry partisan vitriol.

It sounds like we need a plan, doesn’t it? Which means it’s time to prioritize our possible responses and ensure the absolute biggest bang for our buck. Any future stimulus bill should make sure that we’ve checked all the following boxes. We have to:

Support our medical professionals, first responders and law enforcement by giving them the resources and tools they need in these incredibly perilous times. Protect the vital workers who are keeping America afloat right now. Throw a life-line to folks who, through no fault of their own, have lost their jobs. Pay for all necessary testing, contact tracing and treatment. Prop up states and local governments that are struggling to stay solvent. Fully fund research for a vaccine and effective treatments. Balance support for urban and suburban populations with help for our rural economy.

What should we avoid? How about anything that hints of cronyism, nepotism or campaign contributor bailouts, or that elevates wishful thinking over facts and science. The last thing we need right now is the perception that Congress has its head in the sand, or that it favors the wealthy and well-connected over the rest of us.

Finally, we should make sure that any new stimulus bill points the country in a positive direction, with targeted short-term financial help setting the stage for future prosperity. For example, if Congress supports the clean energy sector that’s providing so many new jobs and pumping so much money into our economy, we’ll not only cut future CO2 emissions and start addressing another looming threat—climate change—but we’ll also lock in affordable American energy for the foreseeable future. That’s the very definition of a win-win.

Of course, none of this is likely to be easy. Between the political posturing and the partisan rancor infecting D.C., it can seem like we’re lost on the mountain and doomed to wander aimlessly in a blizzard. But it doesn’t have to be that way. If Congress looks honestly at the threat and prioritizes public well-being over political attacks, then the next stimulus package can actually put America on the road to recovery.

Todd Tanner is a lifelong hunter and angler, an outdoor writer and the president of Conservation Hawks.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.