While I respect the integrity and good intentions of Republican Maine Sen. Susan Collins in agreeing to support the Senate version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it’s my opinion that she sold her vote too cheaply and acquiesced in legislation that will cause profound long-term damage to the American economy.

In exchange for her “yes” vote, Collins said, Senate GOP leaders inserted provisions in their version of the bill allowing limited local property tax and medical expense deductions as well as preservation of a child tax credit. Leadership also promised her it would back separate legislation to subsidize health-care exchanges set up by the Affordable Care Act and avoid reductions to Medicare if tax cuts worsen the budget deficit.

Perhaps Collins felt that the bill, as modified, would do more good than harm by boosting small business, that the measure was going to squeak by anyway even without her support, and/or that she could not go against the core legislative goal of her party’s agenda.

But even if the tax concessions to Collins survive the Senate-House reconciliation process, which must resolve the differences in the measures passed by each chamber, and the other fiscal promises to her are kept (unlikely since they will not be palatable to the House Conservative Caucus), Collins’ effort to ameliorate some of the suffering that will probably be inflicted by tax cuts amounts to little more than re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The lion’s share of the spoils from the Senate and House bills will go to large corporations and the rich, not to low- or middle-income taxpayers, thereby worsening the already severe economic disparities that exist in our society. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, “In general, tax cuts as a percentage of after-tax income would be larger for higher-income groups, with the largest cuts as a share of income going to taxpayers in the 95th to 99th percentiles of the income distribution.”

Worse, the tax cuts will exacerbate budget deficits, adding an estimated $1.4 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years (piled atop an existing debt of over $20 trillion and existing deficit levels, which currently run over $600 billion a year).

One result of these deficits will almost certainly be a severe crunch on public spending, which will, in turn, hamstring the country’s efforts to improve its educational system, rebuild its aging infrastructure, promote scientific and medical research, meet environmental challenges, and maintain our armed forces’ capability to fulfill its world-wide responsibilities. It’s not an exaggeration to say that these cuts could spell the end the “American Century” and this country’s status as an economic and military superpower.

The other result will likely be an increase in government borrowing to cover annual deficits, squeezing private credit markets and raising interest rates for the small businesses and individuals who need to borrow to purchase homes, vehicles and equipment — the very people who form the core of Collins’ constituency.

Economics columnist Robert Samuelson has argued that what the country needs is not another tax cut but a tax increase to cover its expenses and that the time for such an increase is now, when the economy is strong and near full employment, not when it falls back into recession and tax hikes would only make things worse.

After all, we are not, as many believe, a heavily taxed country. Among the 34 developed nations that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. is fifth from the bottom in the amount of taxes paid at all government levels as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In 2015, that average percentage among OECD member countries was 34%, while in the U.S. it was 26%.

The GOP, which has long been drinking the Kool-Aid of supply-side, trickle-down economics, argues that decreasing taxes will spur economic and public revenue growth, which, in turn, will more than compensate for tax cuts. This proved not to be true during the Reagan presidency, when the national debt tripled following his highly touted tax cuts. Nor was it true for the tax cuts of the George W. Bush administration in 2001 and 2003, which contributed about $1.5 trillion to the national debt from 2002 through 2011, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Only after President Clinton raised taxes in 1993 did the country experience a four-year period of budget surpluses starting in 1997.

The current legislation — which is being billed in part as a tax “simplification” measure (something that has, in fact, been sorely needed) and “middle class tax relief” (something that would have been more justifiable if the middle class had been defined as families earning at or less than the national median income of between about $75,000 and $85,000 a year) — is instead turning out to be a windfall for the affluent. And in the Senate version of the bill, almost all the tax relief provisions benefiting lower-middle class earners will terminate at the end of 2025, while the corporate cuts will remain permanent.

The only part of the tax give-away that is arguably justifiable on policy grounds is the reduction in the corporate (“C” corporation) tax rate from 35 percent to 20% percent in order to bring the U.S. in line with the world’s other industrialized countries and prevent the migration of companies to off-shore tax havens. However, the corporate reduction should at least be partially offset by tax increases to the passive income of shareholders who earn dividends and capital gains from their stock holdings in these companies (a measure that’s not even under consideration).

President Donald Trump has been promising to give the American people a tax cut as a “great, big, beautiful Christmas present.” And it certainly will be a gift – to him and his ilk. He’s bound to benefit handsomely from reductions in taxation of pass-through corporate income and the elimination of or reduction in the estate tax.

But for most of the country, including Sen. Collins, it’s going to be a Christmas turkey.