Federal Officials Debate Over When to Pull Back on the National Stimulus
Federal Reserve officials debated last month how quickly they would need to begin pulling back support for the U.S. economy as both the pace of recovery and inflation exceed their expectations.
Minutes from the June meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Fed’s monetary policymaking arm, released Wednesday showed increasing concern among some officials that the bank would be forced to hike rates or pare back bond purchases sooner than they had projected.
After the meeting, the Fed officials voted unanimously to keep the baseline interest range at 0 to 0.25 percent and said it would continue to purchase $120 billion combined in Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities until the economy showed “substantial further progress” toward a full recovery.
