Two Fed officials say more easing won't help on jobs

The U.S. Federal Reserve Building is pictured in Washington, December 15, 2009.

NEW YORK/HOUSTON (Reuters) - Two top Federal Reserve officials said on Wednesday the U.S. central bank should not rush into more monetary easing, which would do little do lower the high U.S. unemployment rate.

The Fed should only embark on additional monetary stimulus if deflation forces its hand, Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser told Reuters in an interview.

Lowering long-term interest rates further "is not going to solve the unemployment problems and it is dangerous to think that it will," Plosser said. If the Fed were to send a signal that it is trying to control the jobless rate, now at 9.5 percent, and then fails to do so, it could hurt its ability to ensure price stability should it face a real threat of deflation, he said.

"If we do need to act, if fears of deflation were to become real - -and I don't think that is the risk -- then we would need every ounce of credibility that we can muster to convince markets we are not going to let deflation happen," Plosser said.

The Fed will continue to keep the price of money low to nurture economic recovery, but should not do more unless lawmakers do their part to encourage job creation, Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher told business leaders in Houston.

The Fed chopped interest rates to near zero in December 2008 and bought $1.4 trillion of mortgage-backed securities to revive the housing market and pull the economy out of a deepening recession.

But uncertainty over the potential cost of healthcare reform and future taxes is keeping businesses from adding to their staffs, Fisher said, and clarity on fiscal and regulatory policies is needed to reduce that uncertainty.

"I believe that monetary accommodation alone cannot buy happiness," Fisher told business leaders at a lunch by the Greater Houston Partnership. "For me, the ball is in the fiscal court for now."

Departing White House economist Christina Romer on Wednesday argued that the U.S. government must provide additional fiscal support for an economy that has shown recent signs of faltering. Concern for the burgeoning deficit "cannot be an excuse for leaving unemployed workers to suffer," she said.

Fisher, who has warned in the past about the economic dangers of running a big deficit, said he does not have a position on whether further fiscal stimulus is needed.

"Whatever tax and spend, or spending programs, that are constructed by Congress, need to be focused on providing incentives for job creation," he told reporters.

But for the Fed to do more at this juncture, in the absence of fiscal policy that encourages jobs growth, would be akin to "pushing on a string," he said.

The Fed's recent decision to keep its $2 trillion balance sheet steady by using proceeds from maturing mortgage-backed bonds to buy Treasuries was an effort to put a halt to any "passive tightening" that could impede recovery, Fisher said.

But he said he would be reluctant to expand the Fed's balance sheet further, because to do so would at best be ineffective and at worst fuel the fires of future inflation.

Both Fisher and Plosser are seen as inflation hawks, more worried about the Fed's potential for fueling out-of-control price rises than about unemployment.

Both said on Wednesday they do not see deflation as a big real risk. Plosser said he would be open to further bond purchases if such a risk developed.

"I would certainly entertain the solution if I feared deflation, which I don't, and I feared expectations were coming unglued in that direction, then we would have to take actions," Plosser said

Fisher and Plosser both rotate into voting spots on the Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee next year.

The Fed has already gone to great lengths to push down borrowing costs, buying $300 billion of longer-term Treasuries in addition to other asset purchases.

But fiscal authorities are better situated than the Fed to address U.S. long-term unemployment problems, both policymakers said.

"It's like a doctor administering medicine to a patient -- if you don't get the disease right, you'll give them the wrong medicine and the wrong medicine can actually make them sicker," Plosser said.

(Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler)