Buffett says unchecked U.S. debt threatens economy: report

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said the U.S. economy has avoided a meltdown and appears on a slow path to recovery, but Congress must now deal with enormous amounts of debt that threaten to erode U.S. purchasing power.

In an opinion column published on Wednesday by the New York Times, Buffett wrote that he "resoundingly applauds" actions by the Federal Reserve and the Bush and Obama administrations to pump trillions of dollars into the financial system.

But the "gusher of federal money" has run up a high level of debt that could fuel inflation, he said.

"The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery," Buffett wrote.

"But enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered and, before long, we will need to deal with their side effects. For now, most of those effects are invisible and could indeed remain latent for a long time. Still, their threat may be as ominous as that posed by the financial crisis itself."