If an economist came up with a completely different forecast than the great majority of economists, and he (or she) turns out to be right, he'll get a pat on the back. If he turns out to be wrong, he'll get fired (or laughed out of the next professional conference, which amounts to the same thing).

Economic forecasting is complex for a system as large as the United States, with an almost infinite number of factors that can potentially throw it off. No theoretical model can incorporate all of the variables in play, and so economists tend to lump themselves into one united camp on their forecasts (if no one else saw event "X" coming, it is not reasonable to ask me to predict it), While economics may be useful for many things, predicting the future is not one of them as long as we have our current set of tools.