Federal workers have protested against the budget cuts, known as sequestration
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged the US to repeal the huge federal budget cuts introduced this year, denouncing them as "excessively rapid and ill-designed".
It said the deficit reduction programme would be a drag on growth this year.
It forecast growth of 1.9% for 2013, but said it could be as much as 1.75 percentage points higher without the rapid tightening of fiscal policy.
But the IMF added that the overall US economy was improving.
"The deficit reduction in 2013 has been excessively rapid and ill-designed," the IMF said, in its annual report on the world's biggest economy.
"These cuts should be replaced with a back-loaded mix of entitlement savings and new revenues, along the lines of the administration's budget proposal."
Source: BBC News - Business http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22911400#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
