The good news about the stimulus is that in blowing out the federal budget so early President Obama stoked the deficit as an issue and made pursuing his most consequential agenda item, health care, that much more difficult. He’s in a box where he has to pay for his health-care plan, which isn’t easy, and the political environment is more favorable to a Republican critique of the health-care plan as a budget-buster than it would be otherwise. For this, we have the stimulus to thank.