WASHINGTON -- Weary investors may crave more interest rate relief, but another U.S. rate cut is neither likely nor warranted, according to a panel of top economists.

More than 80 per cent of forecasters polled by the National Association for Business Economists said the U.S. economy doesn't need any more fiscal or monetary help to keep the recovery alive.

"Policy makers don't need to rush to the aid of the economy," said Tim O'Neill, Bank of Montreal chief economist and incoming NABE president.

There's already plenty of stimulus in the pipeline, with the U.S. Federal Reserve Board's benchmark interest rate at a 41-year low of 1.75 per cent, Mr. O'Neill said in an interview. That has caused lenders to dramatically lower their own lending rates.

The Fed opted last week to keep rates unchanged, although two members of the central bank's interest rate policy committee dissented, voting for rate relief.

The Fed cut rates 11 times last year.

Another quarter- or half-percentage-point rate cut wouldn't have a significant economic impact, and it could even be read by investors as a sign of panic by the Fed, he said.

The safe course for the Fed is to hold the line on rates in case of a possible war in Iraq, Mr. O'Neill added.

"There's a feeling that the Fed ought to keep its powder dry for possible geopolitical shocks," he said.

Only one out of 32 forecasters polled by NABE expects a Fed rate cut in the next six months -- a sharp divergence from the prevailing mood on Wall Street, where many investors assume a rate cut is likely in the next few months.

Indeed, survey respondents ranked war in Iraq as the most significant risk facing the U.S. economy, which is already reeling from falling business profits, battered financial markets and a wave of corporate scandals.

But they rated a double-dip recession, a housing market collapse or deflation as unlikely.

The NABE panel forecast that the U.S. economy would grow at an annual rate of 3 per cent in the second half of this year, down from 3.5 per cent in its last survey six months ago. They also predicted the economy would expand at an annual rate of 3.3 to 3.8 per cent in each of next year's four quarters.

That's still a solid performance for the U.S. economy, Mr. O'Neill suggested.

"It's not a spectacular growth outlook, but the foundations are there," he added.

The good news in the survey is that economists expect capital spending to resume growing next year, after tumbling this year and last year.

Mr. O'Neill, a 55-year-old Canadian, is the first non-U.S. based economist elected to head up NABE, a Washington, D.C.-based association of economists.

Also yesterday, White House economic aide Glenn Hubbard dismissed suggestions that falling stocks could plunge the United States back into recession.

"Even if the equity price declines that accelerated this past spring were to be permanent, while they would have a very noticeable effect on GDP in conventional models, they would not come anywhere close to tipping the economy into recession," Mr. Hubbard told NABE's annual meeting taking place in Washington this week.