“We have more work to do,” Jerome Powell declared Wednesday, following another rate hike from the Fed, which downshifted to a 25bps hike cadence, consistent with market expectations. Powell said the Committee needs “substantially more evidence” to be comfortable that US inflation is on a sustainable path lower.

He acknowledged the possibility that the impact of last year’s hikes hasn’t yet fully worked its way through to the economy. Naturally, that raised questions about how officials can be sure there is, in fact, “more work to do.”

Suffice to say such questions are impossible to answer, so Powell was forgiven for not addressing them in any systematic, definitive way. Instead, he leaned very heavily Wednesday on the absence of disinflation in core services excluding housing, a collection of spending categories the Fed is watching obsessively.

Read more: Ongoing

Powell described a three-front inflation war. Disinflation on the goods side began months ago, and it’s in the pipeline for shelter. But in core services ex-housing, “there’s nothing happening” yet, as he put it, while regaling a reporter from the FT. Powell indicated it could be some time before the disinflationary process begins in those categories. Until it does, “it’d be very premature to declare that we’ve really got this,” he mused, lapsing into the colloquial.

The Fed retained the word “ongoing” in the new statement, which effectively slammed the door on a March pause. The market sees May as a coin flip, but if “ongoing” means anything it means two more hikes. Powell effectively confirmed that while fielding a question from Wall Street Journal “Fed whisperer” Nick Timiraos.

“Why not stop here and see what transpires in the coming months?” Timiraos wondered. “We’re talking about a couple more rate hikes,” Powell said, before reiterating the services ex-housing story. “Policy is restrictive. We’re trying to make a refined judgement” about how restrictive it needs to be. “Did you or your colleagues discuss the conditions for a pause?” Timiraos pressed. “We spent a lot of time talking about the path ahead,” Powell responded.

Axios asked about this week’s data, and the conflicting signals from the cooler read on employment costs and the tension evident in the JOLTS figures. It wasn’t a well articulated question and Powell’s answer was commensurately disjointed. “We did see average hourly earnings and now the ECI abating a little bit, but still at levels that are fairly elevated. The JOLTS number has been quite volatile,” he said. “I did see that it moved back up this morning. It’s probably an important indicator. The ratio is back up to 1.9.”

Steve Liesman took a break from gotcha questions to ask about shorter-term windows for measuring inflation. Given that price growth is non-existent on some very short lookbacks, he wondered if it’s possible the Fed can achieve its goals without additional hikes or any sizable increase in the unemployment rate. In a cringeworthy moment I can only hope was an attempt at humor (because if not, it was just an example of obliviousness), Powell suggested negative readings on the goods side “will be transitory.” I didn’t hear many laughs.

He quickly steered back to the non-housing services talking point. “You’re not going to have a sustainable return to 2% inflation in that sector without a more balanced labor market,” he told Liesman, before reiterating something like faith in a soft landing. “My base case is that the economy can return to 2% without a really significant downturn or without a really significant increase in unemployment,” he said. Powell acknowledged that some economists doubt it. “There’s a chance of it!” he insisted.

Asked by the AP if the recent easing in financial conditions tied to higher stocks, lower yields and falling mortgage rates makes the Fed’s job harder, and whether the Fed would consider raising rates faster to offset it, Powell didn’t really bite. “It’s important that overall financial conditions reflect the policy stance,” he said, in dismissive remarks that critics juxtaposed with the December meeting minutes, which contained an explicit reference to the counterproductive read-through for inflation from rising stocks and falling yields.

He didn’t escape without a question about the debt ceiling. A reporter wondered if the Fed would conduct its own legal analysis in the event Congress didn’t strike a deal, forcing Janet Yellen to get especially creative. “Will the Fed do whatever the Treasury directs?” Powell was asked.

“There’s only one way forward here: Congress needs to raise the debt ceiling,” he said. As to the specific question about requests Treasury might make in an emergency, and whether the Fed would acquiesce, Powell said, “We are their fiscal agent and I’m going to leave it at that.” When pressed further, he flatly (and wisely) declined to elaborate: “I’m just going to leave it at that.”