After a secretive, whirlwind negotiating session, Capitol Hill Republicans have agreed on a tax package. They've taken this from the Senate version and that from the House version, and it looks as if it's going to become law. [ or not, see Post Script].

But it doesn't add up, and the American people know it. The bill is wildly unpopular: Approval for it languishes around 30 percent in polls. In fact, it's the most disliked piece of major domestic legislation of the past quarter-century — most disliked, that is, except for the Obamacare repeal undertaken this past summer by this same Congress. That effort, which failed only because of Senator John McCain's dramatic 1 a.m. thumbs down, was polling at 23 percent.

On what basis do I assert that these two bills are the most unpopular pieces of major domestic legislation of the past quarter-century? On the results of research conducted by Chris Warshaw, a political scientist at George Washington University who specializes in studying the link between public opinion and political outcomes — whether the government is doing what its citizens want it to do.

It struck him, Professor Warshaw explained to me recently, that the Republicans of this 115th Congress had spent the entire year trying to pass two enormously unpopular acts. He got curious about whether any party had tried something like that before in recent history. He examined 15 pieces of major domestic legislation going back to 1990 and studied 17 polling firms' approval ratings for those bills when they were being voted on.

After crunching the numbers, he found that the tax bill and the Obamacare repeal effort were at the bottom on the list in popularity, ranked 14th and 15th. But here's what was even more interesting: Of the 15 bills, nine had an approval rating above 50 percent at the time they passed or failed. And of those nine, eight pursued what could broadly be defined as liberal goals, like gun control and environmental protection.

At the top of the heap was the so-called Brady bill, which mandated background checks and waiting periods on gun purchases, and which President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1993. It polled at 85.7 percent. And by the way, most Republicans in both houses voted against this bill, which was backed by seven out of eight adult Americans — 28 to 16 in the Senate and 119 to 54 in the House.

The next most popular was the minimum-wage increase of 2007, which checked in at 83.5 percent. That passed easily, and with substantial bipartisan support in the Senate, because apparently if a Republican president proposes doing a decent thing for poor people, it's all right. But even that logic didn't obtain in the House, where Republicans voted against it 116 to 82.

Checking in third at 77.7 percent was the 1994 assault weapons ban. Of course, Republicans opposed this popular piece of legislation too, and again by large margins. And as you'll probably recall, a 2013 attempt to pass a new ban after the murder of 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, five years ago Thursday, was also enormously popular — and also opposed by Republicans.

Next up, at 77.5 percent, were the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. These votes were different from the first three, since they occurred before the Republican Party took up residence in its own parallel universe. So these amendments sailed through both houses. Even the lone Republican in the Georgia House delegation then, Newt Gingrich, voted yea.

Only one bill that we can fairly call conservative, the Bush tax cuts of 2001, polled above 50 percent at time of passage (56.6 percent). Every other popular bill was liberal. And virtually all of them were opposed by Republicans.

Conservatives might complain that Professor Warshaw excluded two big George W. Bush-era bills — the Medicare prescription drug expansion and the No Child Left Behind law. Professor Warshaw told me he didn't find enough reliable polling to include them, and in my own examination of the data I found that including them wouldn't have changed much. The Medicare expansion was popular among older people but unpopular with Americans overall. No Child Left Behind was reasonably popular when passed in 2001, but its support declined every year as parents and teachers saw its punitive impact.

The Democrats had a couple of clunkers in there. The Clinton health care bill averaged 40 percent support, and Obamacare 43.3 percent. But now, the public favors Obamacare by around 50 percent to 40 percent — and of course the effort to repeal it was as popular as a root canal.

So there you have it. In 27 years, Republicans have passed one popular conservative law and spent most of that time voting against things that clear majorities of Americans wanted. If they weren't serving Americans, whom were they serving? And how have they gotten away with it?

The answers to both questions, alas, are depressingly familiar. They are serving their megarich donors and the most extreme elements of their base. And they get away with it because of the way they've gerrymandered House districts, because of an ideological right-wing media that obfuscates facts and because the one thing they've done astonishingly well is to make a big chunk of the country hate liberals.

Well, the country doesn't hate liberal policies, as Professor Warshaw's research shows. But until something big changes, it can't get them.

Michael Tomasky is a columnist for The Daily Beast and editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. This appeared in The NY Times on December 14th under the title, The G.O.P.'s Legislative Lemons.

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December 15, 2017

Post Script.

1.#KillTheBill. There is still the possibility we can stop the GOP Tax Bill. There are 99 seating Senators, 52 GOP, 48 Democrats/Independents.

The GOP needs either 51 votes or 50 plus Pence.

Corker is voting no. Rubio says he is voting no. Mike Lee is a possible no. So is Susan Collins, more weakly every day. Where does Your Republican Senator stand

Three no's will#KillTheBill.

Call 202-224-3121 and demand action.

2. Also, momentum is growing for impeachment of Trump. More than 3 million people have signed Tom Steyer's Petition, and so far 9 U.S. senators have now called for Donald Trump to resign. If you haven't signed the petion, click on the link. If your senator is not listed below, call 202-224-3121 and demand action.

Cory Booker

Bob Casey

Kirsten Gillibrand

Kamala Harris

Mazie Hirono

Jeff Merkley

Bernie Sanders

Chris Van Holler

Ron Wyden