>No, 2016 tax collections for just the Federal government were $3.3 trillion [1]. The combined total of federal, state, and local is estimated to be at least tw

>No, 2016 tax collections for just the Federal government were $3.3 trillion [1]. The combined total of federal, state, and local is estimated to be at least twice that. I was unclear. The 2016 budget had 1.1 trillion in discretionary spending and 2.4 trillion in mandatory spending.[1] If you stopped paying the national debt, skipped out on our UN and NATO obligations, and ended social security as well as many other social programs then you have the number you quoted. Still in 2016 we borrowed over 500 billion as we can't afford to meet our current obligations as is. State and local governments are cash strapped for the most part. For many existing taxes don't even cover their current expenditures. You can't simply divert all of those funds to healthcare, massive cuts to services would have to be included. >Increasing capital gains taxes to 100% alone would net almost $2 trillion a year. An increase of even half that would turn the United States into a third world nation overnight as huge amounts of capital flees our unreasonable tax system. As for the rest of it the economists and policy analysts at the Urban Institute disagree with your assessment: http://www.urban.org/research/publication/sanders-single-payer-health-care-plan-effect-national-health-expenditures-and-federal-and-private-spending http://www.urban.org/research/publication/sanders-single-pay... [1]http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/l/119/2016 http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/l/119/2016