The IMF's Analysis of the U.S. Economy: Faulty Assumptions and Bad Policy Advice

The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) report on its 2014 consultation with the U.S., pursuant to Article IV of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, contains an unprecedented number of audacious, highly politicized, and controversial proposals that appear to be an effort by the IMF to support the bulk of the Obama Administration’s statist economic policy agenda. This latest IMF report is decidedly hostile to free enterprise. It promotes a heavy-handed, top-down approach to financial regulations, explicit taxpayer backing of financial sectors, and other expansions of the welfare state and big government—from recommending an increase in the U.S. minimum wage and adoption of “more proactive labor market policies” to a broad endorsement of Obamacare, a call for carbon taxes, and a recommended increase in the maximum taxable earnings for Social Security purposes. Heritage Foundation policy experts explain the dangers of the IMF approach, and make recommendations for the U.S. to take a different course.