While it would be comforting to Donald Trump’s opponents to focus on the fact that in the first year of his presidency, usually a period when a president is strongest, he got but one major bill through the Congress—albeit a sweeping tax bill that will affect virtually all Americans—he’s had a much greater impact on domestic policy than it might appear. For one thing, the Republican Congress slipped into the tax bill other major pieces of legislation that wouldn’t have won approval on their own. For another, through that tax bill and a relentless effort to undo regulations—if Barack Obama did it, it must be wrong is just one reason, while the other is that affected industries successfully lobbied the Trump administration for the roll-backs—Trump has not only made breathtaking changes in domestic policy, but is also wreaking significant damage that can’t be undone. In fact he’s done more in his first year to leave a lasting legacy than some two-term presidents. Trump is given to characteristic exaggeration in rating his legislative record—saying, even before the tax bill was passed, that he’d gotten more done in the Congress than any president since Franklin Roosevelt. This was laughable, but his impact on the domestic arrangements of our national life isn’t.

Most of the commentary on the tax bill that focused on what the White House and Republican leaders gave (or promised, whatever their actual intent) to this or that senator to obtain a majority in that body (the House wasn’t in much question) for a deeply unpopular piece of legislation missed the point of why Trump snagged his sole significant legislative victory. The Republicans understood that if the bill were defeated, they themselves would have accomplished nothing legislatively, and that when they next faced voters in the following November’s midterm elections, this failure would haunt them. (Yes, yes, except for the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, but that didn’t involve legislative maneuvering.) The obloquy that would fall upon them for having done nothing could have cost many of them their seats—and perhaps jeopardized their party’s control of both chambers. Even “safe” seats could be at risk. Their own followers could have difficulty mustering enthusiasm for going to the polls. Republican incumbents could face an intra-party challenge to their candidacy. Emboldened Democrats could mount unprecedentedly strong contests. And Republican donors were credibly threatening to close their wallets if the 115th Congress didn’t produce a tax bill to their liking. No Republican senator wanted to be the author of such a political calamity. (Even those who were planning to retire weren’t giving up on any prospect of a future public life.)

Looked at in this way, it’s no surprise that the tax bill so nakedly favored the very wealthy and businesses. And it’s not clear that, but for the policymakers’ stated rationale that it was essential to cut corporate taxes—the final bill reduced them from 35 percent to 21 percent—there would have been a tax bill at all. As for the supposed cuts in personal tax rates, they’ll soon be overtaken by new expenses—in particular, health care costs. The tax cut legislation was carried along on a river of myths. Republican leaders are particularly adept at creating myths, and perhaps they’ve repeated those myths so often that they’ve come to believe them. For example, while the 35 percent corporate tax rate is high as such taxes go in the world, studies have shown that as a result of loopholes and special breaks corporations simply don’t pay the 35 percent rate. In fact, a study of consistently profitable Fortune 500 companies from 2008 to 2015 showed that, as it happens, they paid an average rate of a 21.2 percent, nearly the same amount that the new tax law stipulates. Moreover, of 258 Fortune 500 companies studied, 18 corporations, including General Electric, Priceline, and Pacific Gas and Electric, paid no corporate taxes at all over the eight years, and 48 companies, or a fifth of those surveyed, paid at a rate of under 10 percent. The study even found that nearly half of the companies with substantial business overseas paid higher rates to foreign countries than they did to the United States. Yet the myth of the overburdened, “non-competitive” corporations persisted, to the point where the non-existent need to lower corporate tax rates was the principal “rationale” for the tax bill. It’s unknown how many of the policymakers were in on the joke, but if some were, they were quite skilled at keeping a straight face when they talked about the ostensibly exorbitant 35 percent corporate tax. Or perhaps this was one of those instances where policymakers have come to believe their own myths.

The business interests pushing for the bill were no fools, and they—including Donald Trump and his family—received various new tax breaks for their companies and for themselves, through so-called pass-through companies that allowed them to pay lower income taxes, or having their company pay them a small salary but large dividends, which are taxed at rates lower than personal rates. Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote in The New York Times, “[P]rivate equity and real estate executives ... will make out like bandits under the new system.” Sorkin argued that it’s not the merely rich but the super rich who stood to do particularly well under the tax bill. Not just Trump, but numerous senators also had substantial investments in real estate, an industry that made big gains under the tax bill. We were presented with the rancid spectacle of elected politicians writing laws to enrich themselves. At least theoretically, that’s not why people go into politics.

In fact, there was no genuine rationale for cutting taxes at this time. Thanks in large part to Barack Obama’s legacy the economy is essentially doing well: Unemployment is low (4.1 percent) and the stock market has been reaching unprecedented heights (in part because investors have believed that Trump would look out for them). The poor are largely ignored; moreover, the Trump White House is seriously considering further reductions in welfare aid. (Paul Ryan isn’t the only person in Washington who subscribes to Ayn Rand’s thinking about the poor as unworthy—he used to keep her books on his office desk—though it’s not known if the president is aware of her.) The one serious economic problem is that wages for the working class have been stagnant, but one would have to subscribe to another myth to believe that the tax bill will help them. That is, the premise that has undergirded the push for tax cuts since Ronald Reagan’s administration, but has yet to come to pass: Lowering taxes will produce significant economic growth.