WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The U.S. central bank may not be able to finish the task it's about to start. Federal Reserve officials aim eventually to reduce its $9 trillion balance sheet by $95 billion a month. At that pace, even already fat pre-pandemic levels of assets might not be reached until early 2027. That's a long time in economics, and in politics.

The Fed’s stock of assets has ballooned over the last 15 years. It was less than $1 trillion before the 2008 financial crisis, which spurred the central bank to purchase bonds to support the economy. The balance sheet topped $4.5 trillion in 2015 and remained around that level until then-Chair Janet Yellen began shrinking it in 2018 as she handed over to incumbent Jerome Powell.

The Fed mobilized again in the wake of the pandemic's arrival in early 2020. It more than doubled its assets to about $9 trillion at the end of last month. Now with inflation at a 40-year high, the Fed wants to offload Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities at a higher pace than during the last tightening phase, according to minutes of the March rate-setting committee meeting released on Wednesday.

With a so-called quantitative tightening (QT) process starting after the next meeting in May and ramping up to $95 billion in monthly reductions, it would be roughly five years before the Fed's assets regained the 2019 low point of $3.8 trillion. If the Fed merely wants to return to a balance sheet amounting to about 19% of GDP, the level before Covid-19, that would mean reducing it to about $4.5 trillion. Even that would take until 2026.

A lot could happen in the meantime. A flattening Treasury yield curve may be foreshadowing a potential recession. The November midterm elections might shift control of Congress from Democrats to Republicans, affecting fiscal policy. And there’s a presidential race in 2024. That's all aside from geopolitical upheaval like Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The last balance sheet reduction effort ended abruptly. The Fed halted its QT program earlier than expected in 2019 to head off perceived problems. The central bank’s toolkit has evolved over time, making history less of a guide. But policies like QT are tough to maintain in the face of economic or political hiccups. A more “normal” balance sheet level may prove elusive.

- At its March meeting, the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee discussed plans for reducing the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet, according to minutes released on April 6. The central bank's asset portfolio has grown to about $9 trillion, compared to just over $4 trillion at the end of February 2020 before the pandemic hit and a low below $4 trillion in August 2019.

- FOMC participants generally agreed that maximum monthly reductions of about $60 billion for Treasury securities and about $35 billion for agency mortgage-backed securities would likely be appropriate. They also agreed that the caps might be phased in over a period of three months. The reduction process could begin after the FOMC's next scheduled meeting on May 3-4.

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