As always, the devil will be in the fine details, especially once this thing goes to committee. Committee is where the real ugly "sausage-making" takes place (witness the bad-faith negotiations over the health care bill), and there's a lot here that will be pretty difficult to get through Congress.

Getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction (even partially) and taxing health benefits both make absolute sense policy-wise. The interest deduction on mortgages was a key fuel for the housing bubble, and is incredibly regressive. Likewise, taxing health benefits *might* stem the growth in unnecessary health expenditures, and allow wages to grow again. That being said, it's a hard sell on Democrats, especially House Dems if the Tea-Party crowd won't play nice.

One hopes that the bill will specifically get rid of the moronic loophole that lets Wall Street types tax their income as capital gains, seeing as how so much of what Wall Street does is not much more than legalized gambling, trying to create money out of thin air. I'll believe it when I see it...as Sen. Durbin said of the bankers on Capitol Hill "it's like they own the place"