Without a doubt the middle class is the one being screwed, but just because a corporation only pays 18%, that doesn't mean that the top earning individuals within that company aren't paying 40-50%. Every penny that a corporation collects and distributes as pay to its employees is taxed twice.
Also, I completely agree that the TARP bill was a textbook example of socialism, but that was a radical and unprecedented move, and I for one would not have had a problem letting those companies declare bankruptcy. Sometimes you need a reality check to expose systemic problems and to ensure that they are not repeated, but our politicians didn't want to be the one's who were in power when we entered the second depression and unemployment crept up to 25%. So they can argue whatever they want, but the motive for the bailouts was political, not economical.
As far as some companies not paying taxes, you would have to look at each individual company, since they aren't all using the same loopholes, and most are simply carrying over previous years losses which won't continue for much longer. Even if all these companies were paying 35% in corporate income taxes, we still wouldn't even be close to having a balanced budget. Far from a scientific estimate, just looking at the 2012 corporate tax revenue of about 335 billion, taking into account that the 2012 effective corporate tax rate was estimated at 12%, which is about 1/3 of 35%, it would have been about 670 billion more, and we're not taking into account the effect those higher taxes may have had on economic productivity and income tax collection.
Bottom line, we are still spending far more than we are taking in, even in a ideal scenario where our corporations are paying the second highest tax rates in the developed world. It's not sustainable. There aren't enough taxpayers to carry the current burden.
I would disagree that the middle class gives to the upper class, if anything, the upper class just isn't giving as much to the government as a percentage of their income. Everybody's taxes go to the government, not other people, who then distribute it accordingly, and the middle class and upper class get very little of that money.
So you have two types of people...those who contribute more in taxes than they get back in government benefits, and those who collect more in government benefits than contribute in taxes.
The middle class and upper class are both in the same group. One isn't giving to the other, both are giving, it's just that the upper class is still left with enough money to live very comfortably, while the middle class feels a drop in living standards. This is why the middle class is the victim in all of this...they make too much to collect assistance, but not enough to live worry free regardless of what the tax rate is.
I think that everybody's tax rate should be as low as possible, with a straightforward progressive incline. I don't think necessarily that the upper class tax rate should be increased...the fact that they can weasel out of paying some taxes is unfair, but I don't think that is the problem, I think that everybody who pays taxes is paying too much.
It can be mutually exclusive, because at the end of the day, corporations contribute to our country economically, unemployed welfare recipients do not. And we are talking about revenues and expenditures, so in this case it is appropriate to put morals aside and look at it strictly from an economic point.
Now...just because I said it can be mutually exclusive does not mean that I think it has to be. I agree that corporate welfare for the most part is nonsense, but again, it pales in comparison to the amount spent on social welfare programs. So I do believe that companies should be given some slack when we discuss this issue, because you can have a capitalist democracy where everyone is a business owner taking advantage of tax loopholes, but you can't when everybody doesn't work and wants to collect welfare.
Sorry for kind of rambling, I do agree with a lot of what you said, and I 100% agree that at the core of the problem is that the right and left view the other as the enemy, instead of simply as a fellow American with a different opinion. Nothing will change until both sides can put America's interests above their partisan agenda.