Well, Bill Gates alone could pay for the salary of thousands of people, so I think that Bernie Sanders want to more evenly distribute wealth (as let's face it, rich people don't even spend the majority of their money, and if they're not going to use it, why not have them give it to people that will?)

Are there any detailed costings? That reads alot like the UK Labour party's "mansion tax" stuff did in 2015.

That said universal healthcare works in so many other countries etc that it must be viable in the US, the question is for Americans want to pay the tax that would require?

Not sure what you mean by detailed costings?

Got to love the assumption of OP that Europe is somehow this insignificant little place that has no people living in it. Germany alone has a population of roughly 84 million. If they can manage free university and healthcare on about a third of the U.S. population then the U.S. can manage it too.

Also I don't get the people being super worried about businesses profit margins honestly. Are you all somehow socialite heirs?

A business can live healthily on a modest profit margin. In Europe that's how most state owned businesses operate. They generate profit that they invest back in.
That's one of the major reasons privatisation sucked so hard around here. The private companys raised the prices and stopped investing back into infrastructure and maintenance, in order to maximize profits.
The result is bad service dangerous infrastucture (some of the old atomic plants that should have been shut down already, keep blowing through transistors, having coolingwater leaks etc). When these companys reach the point of having ruined the infrastucture beyond being able to generate mega profits anymore, they sell back to the state. Smart for the business, bad for the state and everyone else.

The end-result is the same though, the tax payer carries the cost of maintenance. Only that it would have been cheaper to continually upkeep instead of heving to pour billions in later because of negligence.

I'm not trying to say all capitalism is bad or anything like that, but capitalism has shown itself to be non-selfregulating. It needs rules to work. For starters everything that should be a human right, can't depend solely on a priciple that favours the strong and discriminates against the poor.
Schools, Universitys, Healthcare, the power and railroad networks should be state owned and run. That way you create the even playing field capitalism needs to work properly.

As for Sanders plan to invest in infrastructure, that's a proven concept. Road upkeep and building brings some of the best long term returns economically. It brings a lot of emplayment for unskilled people, giving them the chance to rise economically and socially, thus releasing more money into the markets. Plus american roads are hard to outsource to china.

Of course state owned businesses only work as long as the state isn't corrupt as fuck.
As with everything it's really about the balance between state, companies and citizens.

Still a better candidate than Trump or Hilary. Can't say I agree with everything he says, but he is def more appealing than the competition IMO.

Well Australia has an almost identical GDP per capita and also has an minimum wage of around $15 an hour. In 2020 that will likely be well over $16 an hour. So $15 in 2020 really isn't that high.

I won't get into the intricacies of Sander's policies and funding mechanisms (broadly, I agree with some, and think others are irrational).

But I will speak to health policy. America currently spends over double the amount per capita on health that Australia does. In fact, America spends nearly double the amount per capita that any other nation spends.

Despite this, America's health outcomes do not compare favourably to most OECD countries.

It would require a wholesale overhaul of the US Health system to fix this, but its important to note that most of the systems the US is competing (and losing badly) against are single-payer universal health systems.

As a share of GDP, the USA spends some 17% of its GDP on health every year. For comparable nations, this is 9.1% (UK), 9.4% (Australia) and 11.3% (Germany). Again, all of these countries have better outcomes.

Put another way, even if the short term cost to the economy of a dramatic shift in the nature of the system towards universal care was extremely large, the cost savings (and social improvement) from getting down close to the rest of the developed world (say, 10% of GDP) would be over $1 TRILLION per year.

Lets see...

Infrastructure Spending - It doesn't matter if it would increase debt or not. You have to do it at this point. US is very close to the point where damages from old infrastructure could overshadow the debt increase, and people starts to die massively, there isn't enough money in the world to revive them.

College for All - I think Sanders is getting priority mixed up in which education needs to be fixed first, but someone does have to regulate ballooning problem of Student Debt before it freezes consumption activity.

Health Care for All -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN-MkRcOJjY&index=8&list=PLkfBg8ML-gIngk82SUbTp6Og_KkYfJ6oF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSjGouBmo0M

That is how I feel about his plans. In all honesty, Sanders is way too moderate to make enough changes. But there isn't anyone else with better plan.

1. Cut military budget to only 10% more than the next country.

2. Socialize Emergency Services of all kinds (Health, EMS, Police, Fire).

3. Allow citizens to opt out of Socialized Healthcare so that they pay less taxes.

4. Place regulations on College tuitions, make Community Colleges free.

5. While Healthcare is "free", private Healthcare will also exist for those who opt out. Medical facilities that support government Healthcare will enjoy tax cuts.

6. Lower property taxes and put regulations on rental companies to prevent overcharging. This will more directly attack poverty rather than causing a runaround with raising minimum wage.

7. Income tax will remain scaling. However, money spent that adds jobs to the community (mostly construction and luxuries) will allow for tax cuts.

Elect me and I'll stop the nonsense :D

Australia's minimum wage is $17.29 per hour, we have automatic student loans (at a minimal interest rate - I think it's something like 2%) for all citizens, we have universal health care, and our debt-to-gdp ratio is about 34%, compared with the US's 103%.

All three of the things you listed boost the economy significantly. Significantly boosting the economy would also result in more tax revenue without increasing taxes. That increase in tax revenue would then be able to be spent in paying down debt.

A lot of armchair economists like to talk about how the government should be paying down debt rather than spending money. But here's the thing - if you're in a lot of debt, selling off your means of making money doesn't get you out of debt, because you might pay off those debts, but then you need to get into debt again to survive, because you've lost the income source.

Instead, a smart approach is to carefully add more debt in a way that will result in more money coming in, which can then be spent in reducing debt later. It's called an investment. Like someone buying mowing equipment when they plan to start their own lawnmowing business - they spend a little money now, so they can make more money later. It's a question of Return on Investment (or RoI).

In the context of the government, smart investment involves investing in people. And often, things like universal healthcare reduce costs. America has mostly-private hospitals and mostly-private health insurance, and your government pays almost twice as much per capita for health care than my government (Australia) does, despite Australia having a strong public hospital system and a universal health care system. Think about that. We spend less, and get universal healthcare, and a private option for those who want more extensive coverage (the universal part covers essentials only).

Will debt increase because of such changes? In the short term, yes, probably. But it would be a short-term issue only. In the long term, it would be one step towards fixing your budget problems. Another step, by the way, would be to significant defund your military. Australia spends about 7% of total government spending on the military. The US spends about 16%. But describing it like that is misrepresenting how absurdly much you are spending, because 17% doesn't sound large.

If you extract out the mandatory spending (things you *have* to spend money on, by law) and interest repayments, you're left with what's called "discretionary spending" - things that you can fund or defund without changing laws. Discretionary spending makes up about 30% of your total spending (interest on debt is about 6%). Of that 30%, more than half is spent on the military. For comparison, 6% is spent on education. And let me be clear - that's 6% of the 30%, as in less than 2% of total spending. Science gets about 2.7% (of 30%), Medicare and Health gets about 6% (of 30%), and the money spent on the government itself is also less than 7% (of 30%).

And all that military spending is unnecessary. You could reduce spending by half, easily, and still maintain a high-end military. Would it be as capable as it currently is? Probably not. But you don't need all that excess capability. It's not like you're using it efficiently and sensibly right now, a little fiscal control would be healthy for your military.

Seriously, America should be looking at Australia for a model for so many things. You guys were hit hard by the GFC, we avoided recession (and the IMF attributes it to our stimulus program). We have a strong education system, and a strong health system, despite a large public portion of both, and we have universal healthcare and automatic loans for all higher education students. We have sensible gun control (that have resulted in no massacres in something like 20 years), a decent and well-regarded military, and a strong police system that rarely ever has issues with innocent people being shot. We have a political system that supports minor parties and does a better job of representing diverse views thanks to our preferential voting. There are still issues, of course, but Australia is probably, culturally, the country most similar to America, and there's so much you guys could learn from us. And Sanders seems to have learnt at least some things from Australia, or at least shares similar ideas.