No serious candidate in modern times has proposed an increase in the size of New York state government that comes close to Cynthia Nixon’s platform in the Democratic primary for governor.

Adding up each of her plans, Ms. Nixon would at least double state spending in the first year they took effect.

“It’s beyond any increase we’ve ever seen,” said E. J. McMahon, the founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy, an Albany think tank that has been critical of state spending and tax policies. “When you put them all together, you’re taking an elevator to the International Space Station.”

Though she does not have firm plans on how to raise most of the money, Ms. Nixon makes no apologies for the total. Rising health care costs, a weakened mass transit system and extreme weather will worsen the state’s problems, her campaign said.

“We are the most unequal state in the nation in terms of income,” said Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for Ms. Nixon. “These are big problems, and they’re not going to fix themselves. They’re going to require real investment.”

Here’s what some of it looks like.

The Dollar Amounts Are Huge

Because so few of us have personal experience with the colossal numbers in government budgets, the figures can seem abstract. Who has any reason to know the difference between a million dollars and a billion?

By thinking about those numbers as something other than money, the scale of spending comes into range.

For instance, instead of dollars, look at the numbers as time.

So: 1,000 seconds is nearly 17 minutes.

One million seconds is the length of 11 days and 14 hours.

And a billion seconds passes in 31 years and eight months.

New York State will spend $170 billion this year.

If the Nixon expenditures were added to the existing budget, New York would spend at least $345 billion annually — almost four times as much as New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania combined.

The Biggest Ticket

Ms. Nixon endorses legislation that would create a single-payer health care system sometimes called “Medicare for all.” Her opponent, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, said that he supported the concept, but that it should be done by the federal government. Though it has become a popular cause, no state has successfully put the system in place.

RAND Corporation researchers found that the New York bill could expand coverage and lower costs for most people. Instead of individual premiums, taxes would be raised on a relatively small group of higher-earning people and companies.

The RAND study estimated the state’s cost at $139 billion in the first year, rising to more than $200 billion.

Asked by the Daily News editorial board this week how she intended to pay for it, Ms. Nixon did not have specifics. “Pass it and then figure out how to fund it,” she said.

All Renewable Energy, All Over the State

New York has the lowest carbon emissions per capita of any state. Ms. Nixon has endorsed a plan for 100 percent renewable energy in the state by 2050, drawing on a 2017 report from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The state would need to spend about $25 billion annually from 2021 to 2030 to do that — “a substantial challenge,” the authors stated.

The Nixon campaign proposes a “polluters” tax on carbon that the study says would raise an average of $7 billion annually. That leaves a balance of $18 billion. The study suggested that money could come from private investment, rather than the state, Ms. Nixon’s campaign said. Those investments would be paid for by customers of the electricity utilities.

The Subways. The Buses. The M.T.A.

Ms. Nixon has hammered Governor Cuomo for the deterioration of the subway system, and has endorsed a rescue plan devised by Andy Byford, the president of New York City Transit hired by Mr. Cuomo. The price tag is guesstimated at $37 billion over 10 years, or $3.7 billion annually. There’s some daylight between the two candidates on how to pay for this — both support congestion pricing, but Ms. Nixon also says money could be drawn from the “polluters” tax (see above), and by higher income taxes on people making $300,000 and up.

Public Housing and Public Schools

Ms. Nixon calls for $17 billion in investment in the New York City Housing Authority (over an unspecified period of years), and $7.4 billion more annually for public education from early childhood through college. The money would be raised with income tax increases on people earning more than $300,000 and on corporations.

Soaking the Rich

Many parts of Ms. Nixon’s plans rely on the misnamed “millionaires” tax. Rates would rise on people making $300,000 and up. One pitfall is that such revenue is not reliable: The wealthiest New Yorkers make much of their money on capital gains — not salary — which rise and fall with stock prices. That income dropped by 75 percent after the recession of 2008.

Another wild card is that the 2017 Trump tax bill eliminates the deductibility of all but $10,000 in state and local taxes from federal income taxes. What that means, Mr. McMahon of the Empire Center for Public Policy says, is that combined state and city taxes on upper-income residents of New York City will be nearly 13 percent — the highest ever, and possibly a motive to move residence.

Morality and Money

A governor can’t do much unless the legislature goes along. Ms. Nixon says she’ll get more sympathetic Democrats in the State Senate, a body where party intrigues and betrayals are practically written into the legislative calendar.

The practicality of the Nixon platform trails far behind its aspirations, as great as the difference between a thousand seconds (17 minutes) and a billion (31 years). “A state budget is as much a moral document as a fiscal statement,” Ms. Nixon’s platform says.

Yet arithmetic gets the last word in many human affairs.