FYI: The country added about 1,000 jobs in December, according to today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics job numbers release. And that, says the Economic Policy Institute, puts the White House about 1.6 million short on the number of jobs its tax cut was supposed to stimulate by year’s end. EPI has dogged the administration on job numbers since the June 2003 tax cut passed, with the White House saying the cuts would work with a predicted economic recovery to stimulate 5.5 million new jobs in 18 months, with 1.4 million of them a direct result of the tax cut. The White House further predicted just over 1.8 million new jobs by year’s end, with 510,000 of them coming directly from the cut. By EPI’s count, today’s BLS report puts the job growth since the cut passed at a paltry 221,000. [1/9/04]