With tax rates at the center of the debate over how to revive the stalled recovery, the Federal Reserve is likely to spend its policy meeting on Tuesday weighing the merits of additional steps to stimulate the economy, while deferring some major decisions until later this year.

The meeting will be the Federal Open Market Committee's last scheduled gathering before the midterm elections. And given that the central bank studiously tries to stay outside the fray, the politically delicate moment and the mixed economic indicators of recent weeks suggest that the Fed will hold off for now on a pivotal decision: whether to try to further stimulate the economy by resuming large-scale purchases of Treasury securities to push record-low interest rates even lower.

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