By Ann Saphir

EL PASO, Tex. (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve should cut back on purchases of housing bonds as soon as its next policy-setting meeting, but it should wait to see what Congress does on the fiscal front before trimming Treasury purchases, a top Fed official said on Wednesday.

As for the central bank’s goal of boosting the moribund housing market through purchases of mortgage-backed securities, Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said, “It is mission accomplished.”

By Ann Saphir

EL PASO, Tex. (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve’s massive bond-buying program could spark unwanted inflation unless the U.S. central bank is dexterous in how it pares back easing, a top Fed official who has long opposed the purchases warned on Wednesday.

While so far there are no signs of budding U.S. inflation, the longer term inflationary consequences of the bond purchases “are as yet unclear,” Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said in remarks prepared for delivery at the University of Texas at El Paso.