Jonathan Cohn:
According to a senior administration official, Boehner last week had indicated his agreement with an extension of unemployment insurance, some kind of renewal of the payroll tax holiday, and at least some "language" about future funding for highways. Together, those steps would likely have pumped about $160 billion, maybe more, into the economy over the next year.
I checked with a few economists. The consensus was that, very roughly, such a stimulus would lift gross domestic product by 1.5 percentage points. That would translate to about a million additional jobs.
General caveats about unnamed sources, etc...
Read the whole post -- there is also a bit about S&P threatening that a simple debt limit increase would not be sufficient to prevent them from downgrading the US credit rating. Rather, they were also demanding deficit reduction. This seems to go beyond the general hostage taking from Moody's that centered only on a requirement that the debt limit be raised, IIRC.
A stimulus (albeit a small one) would be nice right now when the recovery is teetering, but not if the price is any meaningful cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Depending on the hows and wheres of Obama's proposed savings in these programs, this deal may or may not have been worth it (yes, I know this is not exactly a bold statement). I suppose it's now a moot point anyway.
h/t to Balloon Juice