WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve should stop talking about the need for a "patient" interest rate policy just before it thinks it will begin hiking rates, a top Fed policymaker said on Monday.
Richmond Federal Bank President Jeffrey Lacker said in an interview with Reuters that the Fed's guidance in December that it would be patient with raising rates harkened back to a strategy employed in 2004.
"I'd excise 'patient' if at a given meeting I felt we were likely to want to move at the following meeting," Lacker said.
In January of 2004, the Fed jettisoned its pledge to keep rates low for a "considerable period" and said it could be "patient" in removing stimulus, language it kept until May of that year when it dumped the reference to patience. At the next meeting in June, it raised rates.
In the interview, Lacker said he also believed that labor market slack was close to being eliminated, underscoring his view that the Fed should raise rates sooner rather than later to keep inflation under control.
(Reporting by Michael Flaherty and Jason Lange; Editing by Paul Simao)
