: Cooling growth enough to curb inflation, but not so much as to tip the world's largest economy into a recession.
Still, some investors anticipate the Fed on Wednesday may not offer encouraging signals that rate hikes are over, let alone open the door to rate cuts. Adding worries on top of that is the latest political spat over the nation's debt limit. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said late Monday that the U.S. government could default on its debt as early as June 1 unless a divided Congress allows it to borrow more. That's an earlier"X-date" than previously thought.A default could be disastrous because much of the financial system is built on the assumption that U.S. government debt is the safest investment available.