By Carey Gillam
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - A top Federal Reserve official who has often warned of the risks of keeping U.S. interest rates too low for too long said on Friday she wants to see how winding down the Fed's massive bond-buying stimulus goes before setting out any path for rate hikes.
"I don't think it would be fair to say I have a date in mind or a path in mind," for the appropriate timing of the Fed's first rate increase, Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Esther George told the Central Exchange. "We are in a place now where we have to be very careful and think about how we are beginning to withdraw stimulus."
With the Fed on track to ending its bond-buying program in the fourth quarter, she told reporters later, it is too early to set any schedule for raising rates.
"I don't think you can do that. I don't know what will happen in six months. We don't control the whole path," George told reporters. "We are making a decision on asset purchases right now. Depending on how that goes will determine the lift off in rates."
George is one of the Fed's most hawkish policymakers. Last year, when it was her turn to vote on the Fed's policy-setting panel, she used every one of her votes to dissent from the Fed's decisions to keep buying more bonds to stimulate the economy. She voted with the majority only in December, when the Fed began paring the program.
On Friday she said she continues to support the reductions in bond-buying, and she also supports the Fed's decision to base any decision to raise rates on a "wide range" of factors rather than use a specific unemployment rate benchmark.
But she also made clear that she differs from the majority of her Fed colleagues in wanting to keep rates near zero for a "considerable time" after bond-buying ends, and below normal even once employment and inflation reach healthier levels.
"The risk I see is being too low for too long," she said.
(Reporting by Carey Gillam; Writing by Ann Saphir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
