Taxes. What the hell?

I have a new job now, one that pays much better than my previous job, though I am at the same company, doing basically the same thing, but that is beyond the point.

So today I received my first full paycheck with my pay raise included, and I was looking forward to tearing into that envelope and gazing upon the mountainous piles of cash that I would be gifted with for my hard work and longer hours.
Now, upon first glance everything seemed to be in order. I made double what I usually made before and there was a whole other place value to be accounted for. Then it hit me - But I worked two times as many hours as I usually did.
So I worked twice as long and got paid twice as much, which sounds good until you realized that hourly I should be making more money anyway. Thus, my disillusionment began.

The thing I have found out (which I should have known before) was that all those extra hours and extra pay added up to a higher paycheck, which thus put me into a higher tax bracket, which meant my taxes increased, which meant that I was making close to the same amount of money per hour as before.

This raises terrifying and worrying implications. I've always been under the impression that by being paid more, I would get more money. It seems, however, that by being paid more the government actually gets more money.
What?
How am I ever supposed to get a higher paycheck then? Will my life be an eternal struggle towards higher and higher pay grades, only to find that each of these pay increases also raises me up into the next tax bracket, thereby negating any hope I have of ever actually, you know, getting more money?

If so, then what, exactly, is the impetus to try harder? What reason do I have to ever aspire to more responsibility, or to do better work to get a raise?
Nothing. The answer is nothing.

Isn't that the opposite of capitalism? Isn't my incentive to do well in my work the hope that I will achieve more monetary compensation? Yes. Yes it is. But not so anymore.
And really, with a democrat in office (oh shit, here comes the politics) isn't it likely we're just going to be taxed more?

But anyway, I'm going to stop complaining and take my four figure check to the liquor store to dispel my unholy woes.