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WASHINGTON —The International Monetary Fund on Thursday called on the U.S. to raise taxes to curb rising debt levels while applauding "robust, dynamic" growth in the world's largest economy and progress toward bringing inflation under control.
The IMF said in a closing statement for its "Article IV" review of U.S. economic policies that high deficits and debt "create a growing risk to the U.S. and global economy, potentially feeding into higher fiscal financing costs and a growing risk to the smooth rollover of maturing obligations."
The IMF's statement slightly revised down its 2024 U.S. GDP growth forecast to 2.6% from the 2.7% forecast in the global lender's World Economic Outlook in April.
The IMF forecasts U.S. growth in 2025 to dip to 1.9%, unchanged from the April outlook, and remaining above 2% through the end of the decade.
"The U.S. economy has proven itself to be robust, dynamic and adaptable to changing global conditions," the IMF said. "Activity and employment continue to expectations ... and the disinflation process has been considerably less costly than many had feared."
The IMF said it expects U.S. inflation to return to the Federal Reserve's 2% target by mid-2025, considerably sooner than the Fed's own forecast of returning to target in 2026.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters that the IMF's forecast is more optimistic because of the current trajectory of inflation indicates a quicker return to target, partly because strong U.S. consumer spending driven by wealth built up during the COVID-19 pandemic is subsiding and the labor market is cooling.
Debt, trade prescriptions
But the IMF chided Washington for rising deficits that, if continued, would bring the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio to a concerning level of 140% by the end of the decade. The IMF measure includes Social Security pension and Medicare health care obligations.
"Such high deficits and debt create a growing risk to the U.S. and global economy, potentially feeding into higher fiscal financing costs and a growing risk to the smooth rollover of maturing obligations," the Fund said.
For the second year in a row, the fund prescribed that the U.S. increase income tax rates progressively, not only on the wealthiest Americans but also for households earning less than $400,000 a year - a threshold that U.S. President Joe Biden has vowed not to cross in his re-election campaign pledges.
The fund said the U.S. also should reform entitlement programs, cuts that Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump have both vowed not to pursue, and raise the threshold for eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit for workers without children.
Georgieva said the fund was trying to present a policy path for the U.S. "that in our view would serve the economy and its people well," as it would for any IMF member country.
With the U.S. economy strong, it was a "good time" for the U.S. to consolidate its fiscal position, she said, adding: "It is in good times where you can do more to prepare yourself for risks in the future."
The IMF also said that intensifying U.S. tariffs and other trade barriers along with the increased use of industrial policy to favor domestic firms represented a downside risk for the U.S. and global economies, with the potential to distort investment flows and undermine the global trading system.
Instead, the fund called for Washington to work out differences with trading partners through negotiations and strengthen the World Trade Organization.
In her discussion with Georgieva, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reiterated the importance of "frank and thorough assessments" of IMF member economies and discussed the "remarkable performance of the U.S. economy over the past few years," the Treasury said.
Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.