Wow. Matthew Yglesias catches David Ignatius worrying that the Fed may not have enough political support in its efforts to raise interest rates and fight inflation. As Matt correctly notes, this is a remote issue — unemployment is high, inflation is low, and the Fed has no business raising rates any time soon.

This really can’t be overemphasized. I like to use Glenn Rudebusch’s estimate of the Taylor Rule — a rule relating interest rates to unemployment and inflation — that appears to track past Fed behavior. The chart below shows the rate predicted by the rule versus the actual rate on 3-month T-bills (I’m using that rather than the target Fed funds rate for trivial computational convenience).:

Federal Reserve of San Franciso, Federal Reserve of St. Louis

The Fed has been up against the zero lower bound since the beginning of 2009, roughly when unemployment rose above 11 percent; right now the Taylor rule says that the Fed funds rate should be minus 6.7%.

So why should the Fed even be thinking about raising rates any time soon? We’re not likely to see 7% unemployment for years — and by the time we do, inflation will probably be even lower than it is now. I’d add that the Fed really should be raising its inflation target, meaning an even longer pause before it raises rates.

Monetary tightening shouldn’t be on the agenda for a long, long time.