Why are you leaving out the huge subsidies for industries like Big Oil? The $13-14 billion or so in the last energy bill being one example? Or the the fact that 82 of the largest corporations paid NO TAXES AT ALL in one of the first 3 years of the Bush administration.
You also ignore the fact that corporations benefit tremendously from our tax dollars, disproportionately so. The wear and tear on our roads from their good transporting trucks, the pollution they pump into our air and water, the government provided stable form of currency that allows for business transactions, the legal system that allows them to enforce contracts, and of course, a huge pool of *publicly* educated workers they can hire (again, all on *our* dime).
Not to mention (again) that since profits are the #1 motive (by law), mega corporations like Wal-Mart pay next to nothing (and have no and or expensive benefits and define "full time" as 28 hours a week to skew statistics) and many of their employees end up on tax-payer funded, government programs like WIC!
It's absolutely INSANE to argue for no corporate taxes in this big picture context. The bottom line is that people who argue that the economy is good from the narrow perspective of how Wall Street is doing (and or based on GDP) are ignoring how well the *average* person is doing. To that point, corporate tax rates were much higher prior to Reagan (as were income taxes, particularly on the rich) and the middle class was doing MUCH better.
You want even more damning evidence and facts (as opposed to just generic generalizations about how "people pay taxes, not corporations"?):
"...From 1980 to 2005 the national economy, adjusted for inflation, more than doubled. (Because of population growth, the actual increase per capita was about 66 percent.)
But the average income for the vast majority of Americans actually declined during that period. The standard of living for the average family has improved not because incomes have grown, but because women have gone into the workplace in droves.
The peak income year for the bottom 90 percent of Americans was way back in 1973 — when the average income per taxpayer (adjusted for inflation) was $33,001. That is nearly $4,000 higher than the average in 2005. It’s incredible but true: ***90 percent of the population missed out on the income gains during that long period***.
Mr. Johnston does not mince words: “The pattern here is clear. The rich are getting fabulously richer, the vast majority are somewhat worse off, and the bottom half — for all practical purposes, the poor — are being savaged by our current economic policies.”..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/19/opinion/19herbert.html?em&ex=1200891600&en=e84c9fb476b7ff29&ei=5087%0A