In the nomination hearing for Fed Vice Chair position, Lael Brainard said, “we are seeing the strongest rebound in growth and decline in unemployment of any recovery in the past five decades.”

“But inflation is too high, and working people around the country are concerned about how far their paychecks will go,” she added. “Our monetary policy is focused on getting inflation back down to 2% while sustaining a recovery that includes everyone. This is our most important task.”

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said Fed “could begin increasing the policy rate as early as the March meeting in order to be in a better position to control inflation.” He added, ” it makes sense to get going sooner rather than later and so I think March would be a definite possibility.”

“We need to risk manage here. We need to be prepared for the case where inflation does not moderate as much as hoped and instead the Fed has to come in and move inflation closer to the 2% target. How much the Fed has to do and how much natural moderation there will be is very much an open question,” he said.

Separately, Bullard also told WSJ, “I actually now think we should maybe go to four hikes in 2022.”

Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said today, “there is a risk inflation is likely to be elevated for an extended period of time and we need to respond directly, clearly and aggressively.” “If things continue the way they are March would be a reasonable possibility,” he added.

Bostic also said there was no need to phase in balance sheet runoff. “I would hope we would move pretty quickly and get out of this emergency stance,” he said. “The tool is pretty well understood and the motivation is pretty well understood. It should go faster for sure.”

In the prepared remarks for the nomination hearing before Senate Banking Committee, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said, “today the economy is expanding at its fastest pace in many years, and the labor market is strong.”

After the initial shutdown and the subsequent reopening, “the economy has rapidly gained strength despite the ongoing pandemic, giving rise to persistent supply and demand imbalances and bottlenecks, and thus to elevated inflation.”

“We are strongly committed to achieving our statutory goals of maximum employment and price stability,” Powell said. “We will use our tools to support the economy and a strong labor market and to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched.”

Full remarks here.