The Italian News agency ANSA is reporting that it has a seen a draft of the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook report slated for release next week and that that U.S. growth forecast has been lowered from 2% to 1.7%.
The reasons cited for the drop in growth predictions are newly imposed high taxes on higher-income Americans and the $85 billion sequester cuts.
ANSA says next week’s IMF report will predict that the world economy will expand at exactly twice the rate–3.4%–as the U.S. economy this year.