Jill Filipovic is a journalist based in Washington and the author of the book "The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness." Follow her on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely her own. View more opinion articles on CNN.

(CNN) A year after President Donald Trump's much-touted tax cuts were signed into law, at least some of the results are in, and there are clear winners: Millionaires. Big corporations. And that's about it.

Jill Filipovic

"It's a lot of fun when you win," Trump said at a public ceremony for the bill, but not even the GOP benefited from the tax cuts -- at least, not politically. Many Americans were underwhelmed by the legislation, and didn't see much of an impact on their lives or pocketbooks. Likely recognizing they had a losing issue on their hands, Republicans didn't campaign on them ; they still lost big in the midterms.

Electorally, the tax cuts were losers, because for the average American they were insignificant enough to go largely unnoticed. The average Republican politician, though, made out like a bandit. The median Republican senator was worth $1.4 million according to Roll Call when the tax cuts were signed into law. Thanks to the Trump tax breaks, millionaires, including these senators, collectively saved an estimated $17.4 billion according to a report from the Joint Committee on Taxation. The same men who pushed this law through, and their donors and backers likely even more so, also benefited immensely from it.

At the same time, the Americans they are supposed to represent lost out. It's true that some middle-class folks did see an extra $30 or so on their paycheck each month, which is all good and fine for a Friday pizza night. But the tax cuts have now led the Republican Party to push the other half of their financial boondoggle: Cutting social welfare programs.

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Around the world, many prosperous and developed nations consider goods like affordable health care and high-quality education to be public and available to everyone, no matter one's income. In most prosperous and developed nations, there is a generally agreed-upon norm of the state providing care and support to those who need extra assistance: The poor, the unemployed, the disabled. In the United States, this is not quite a universal goal. While liberals and many moderates want to expand unemployment and social security benefits, raise the minimum wage, offer paid leave to new parents and those caring for sick family members, and do a better job at supporting the poor, the conservatives we have elected to office do not. The dream of the GOP is to slash what they call "entitlement" programs -- and what many other countries would simply qualify as decency toward your fellow countrymen.

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