President Donald Trump seems to have finally recognized the obvious: The American public doesn’t believe the tax-cut bill he signed into law in 2017 is benefiting them.

That can be the only explanation for his jaw-dropping contention — so incredible it really needs to be heard to be believed — that the White House and Congress are working on a “major” pre-election middle-income tax cut.

To be clear, no middle-income tax cut is coming. Congress isn’t even in session, and, if you recall, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act could only pass by being included in a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill.

On Monday afternoon, Trump clarified that what was being considered was a legislative proposal — and he acknowledged that it would not be enacted until after the election. He said he was targeting a 10% reduction for middle-class taxpayers.

However real — on a scale of not particularly real to totally imaginary — the new Trump tax-cut idea represents recognition that the big tax overhaul hasn’t paid significant dividends for most Americans.

That was obvious from the outset to anyone paying attention. For a middle-class household, the typical change was $930 per year, per the Tax Policy Center. That extra $78 per month, assuming the proper withholding changes were made, gets easily lost amid other rising costs, including the roughly 35-cent increase in the price of gasoline prices since the tax-cut legislation was signed into law.

That’s even the case if you factor in the flood of corporate announcements of one-time employee bonuses after the tax-cut bill was enacted that the Trump Commerce Department estimates was worth $30 billion in aggregate.

And, remember, for the typical household, 2018 may be the peak of the tax law’s benefit, because the brackets are indexed to a measure of inflation that’s less than what most people experience. And that isn’t even getting into the issue of the 2025 sunset of the individual tax provisions.

Polling reflects the fact the tax law has done little. A Gallup poll conducted toward the end of last month found 46% disapprove of the law versus the 39% who voice approval for it; more worrying to Republicans as the midterms approach, two-thirds say they have not seen an increase in their take-home pay. (What that says about how closely Americans track their own finances is another issue — over 80% of middle-income earners got some benefit.)

Which gets back to Trump and his tax idea. It comes as the Democrats enjoy a roughly 8-point lead in generic congressional polling that most analysts would assume translates into flipping control of the House of Representatives.

If Trump is to avoid the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters leading probe after probe of his administration, he has just a few short weeks to move the dial and lead the Republicans to an improbable hold of both chambers.

Related:November shock? Republicans could still control Congress after the midterms, polls suggest