From the WAPO,

In the good-news/bad-news spirit of Good Friday comes this report from the Blue Chip Economic Indicators survey of private economists out today: 86 percent of them think that the recession will end in the second half of this year.

However, they said, unemployment -- which stands at 8.5 percent -- will keep rising into 2010.

The economists predicted unemployment will peak next year at 9.8 percent.

The Obama Administration told the American people that the stimulus bill would turn the economy around.

So, if those economists turn out to be right, the recession will end in the second half of 2009, which incidentally, was the same period the CBO predicted the recession would end if we did nothing.

In other words, before we spent trillions on the stimulus, bank bailouts, auto-loans, TARP, etc., etc., the estimate was that the recession would end in the second half of 2009. Now, after spending so much that we've delivered a crippling blows to the future of our country, the estimate is exactly the same as it was before.

So, what was the point of all this spending again?