An American Enterprise Institute letter-writer wrote in Monday’s Letters section of The Wall Street Journal about his concerns regarding David Malpass’ view that the Federal Reserve needs to seriously set about reducing its balance sheet.

With the budget deficit projected at about $2 trillion a year and with foreign investors seeming to be losing their appetite for US Treasury bonds, any attempt by the Fed to reduce its balance sheet size today is bound to add upward pressure to long-term interest rates.

This, despite his stated position in his immediately prior paragraph that

David Malpass is certainly correct to argue that Fed balance sheet reduction is a worthy monetary policy objective[.]

If not now, though, then when? There’ll always be an excuse for today to put off the shrinkage until later, but there’ll always be some Next Big Thing coming up later that wants more delay. The letter-writer headlined his missive with the position that the Fed needs to take a long view in its determination of when to shrink its sheets.

It’s just barely possible, though, that the new Director has just that perspective. The longer the balance sheet reduction is delayed, the more expensive and disruptive to our economy that reduction will be when it is put into action. It’s the suboptimal short-term view to wait until later to begin for today’s convenience.

No, either way, short-term upward pressure will be added to interest rates. Better to grunt through that disruption now, before it gets really expensive.