You can't fund a full (poverty level) UBI without progressive taxation (as you mention, most people don't recommend paying for UBI via deficit spending), and UBI advocates acknowledge that there will be a breakeven point beyond which people's taxes increase more than the UBI affords. This achieves the same "curving towards zero" of the benefits as if you had means tested people and only given people below a certain income some payment.
UBI advocates tend to prefer doing it this way - giving everyone the same amount, and taxing it back from high-earners to achieve the same "phase out" effect" - so as to avoid the bureaucracy of means-testing.
What you're saying here is pretty close to the "modernized negative income tax" I suggest towards the end of the essay. Whether UBI, or stimulus-style phaseout, there will always be net recipients, and net funders. I'm not sure whether means testing is better than going universal and taxing on the back end to achieve particular distributions, but it's important to note that UBI's funded by progressive taxation, when all is said and done, are still redistributing money from above to below.