The Congressional Budget Office appears to have a more realistic view of the economy than the rest of the U.S. government:
In the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) judgment, the economy will stop contracting
and resume growing during the second half of this year, but the hardships caused by the recession will persist for some time. The growth in output later this year
and next year is likely to be sufficiently weak that the unemployment rate will probably
continue to rise into the second half of next year and peak above 10 percent. Economic
growth over time will ultimately bring the unemployment rate back down to the neighborhood of 5 percent seen before this downturn began, but that process is
likely to take several years.
They also don’t see GDP making a sharp recovery:
Mr. Roche is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Discipline Funds.Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory firm with a focus on helping people be more disciplined with their finances.
He is also the author of Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Understand About Money and Finance, Understanding the Modern Monetary System and Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction.