crashteam| Yellen: High interest rates make the U.S. deficit manageable and more challenging, highlighting the need to increase revenue

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said interest rates will remain high in the long runcrashteamThe prospect of U.S. borrowing makes it more difficult to control U.S. borrowing needs, highlighting the importance of focusing on increasing revenue in budget negotiations with Republican lawmakers.

"We have raised our interest rate expectations," Yellen told Bloomberg News in an interview on Friday. "It does have an impact. This makes it more challenging to keep deficits and interest expenses under control."

Yellen was referring to the administration's budget proposal, which she said would ensure the United States remains on a sustainable fiscal track. She reiterated her emphasis on inflation-adjusted interest payments relative to GDP. That ratio has increased over the past year, but the White House expects it to stabilize at 1 per cent over the next decade.crashteam.3%.

"I don't have a hard and fast rule, but I don't want to see it above 2%," she said. This is her clearest comment on this indicator so far.

In contrast, economists at Goldman Sachs do believe the ratio will exceed the tolerance zone-the net real interest payment ratio is expected to reach 2.3% by 2034. That's the data in a new analysis released Wednesday. Five years ago, the bank's forecast was 1.5%.

Soaring interest rates are a key reason for the deteriorating outlook. The Federal Reserve will start to raise interest rates aggressively in 2022 to curb inflation, increasing the government's debt service costs.

In its latest annual budget proposal, the White House predicted that the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond would be 3.7% by the early 2030s, almost a full percentage point higher than the 2.8% forecast in the budget proposal three years ago. Treasury rates, closely tracked by the Federal Reserve's benchmark interest rate, have risen by about 0.5 percentage points in long-term forecasts.

"We have included many deficit-reduction measures in the budget to keep interest spending at a level we believe is fiscally responsible," Yellen said. She was interviewed by Bloomberg News during a meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bank governors in Stresa, Italy.