But not this time. Polling suggests that only a minority – and probably a declining minority — of the public considers the Trump tax cut a good idea. Most people don’t see any benefits from the tax cut in their paychecks. And Republicans have pretty much given up campaigning on the tax cut.

Voters are, of course, right to have negative views about TCJA. It’s a mess of a bill; it will do little for economic growth, while increased deficits will create pressure to cut social insurance programs that affect many more people than the relative handful of wealthy stockholders who will win big. But voters should have been negative about the Bush tax cut too. Why do voters seem so much more woke? Why is this time different?

One possible answer might be that Trump is doing even less for ordinary voters than Bush. But I don’t think the numbers support that argument. The initial effect of the tax cuts in TCJA will be to raise income for the middle quintile by 1.4 percent; for EGGTRA, the first Bush tax cut, that number was 2.2 percent, but that was an overall bigger tax cut relative to the economy. Distributionally, the two tax cuts were broadly similar – as I said, big stuff for the rich, plus what amount to loss leaders for the middle class.

Another answer might be that the Bush tax cut was pushed through in a very different fiscal environment. Readers of a certain age may recall that when Bush ran in 2000, the U.S. actually had a budget surplus – which he claimed simply to be giving back to voters. But during the Obama years voters were subjected to constant scare talk about deficits and debt – some from centrist scolds, some from the very Republicans who rammed through their tax cut. This may have made voters more aware of the downside to big tax cuts for the rich, even if they got a bit themselves.

Finally, many people – rightly – don’t trust anything associated with Trump. Now, Bush officials were systematically deceptive in everything they said about tax policy (and much else); but Bush didn’t tweet out four or five blatant lies every day, and it took both the Iraq debacle and Katrina to finally wake up voters and the media to the Bush administration’s relatively subtle although deep dishonesty.