The collective record of the baby boomers in the wealthy economies is alarming. Boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, who are thus aged from 49 to 67, have been running the world for a decade. In that time, the European Union has collectively accumulated a public debt of more than 90 per cent of gross domestic product. Japan has a public debt of more than 200 per cent GDP. The US has seen the growth of absurd disparities in wealth, a hollowing out of the middle class, an economy floating on massive money-printing and a federal debt now more than 100 per cent of GDP.

This is the defining challenge facing the Abbott government, yet only a small fraction of the political reporting is even looking at the challenge. Instead there is a din about spending, with a clamour about more, more more. Where is the money for Gonski? For the National Disability Insurance Scheme? For the infrastructure to deal with 240,000 immigrants a year? For cutting carbon emissions? For health? Indigenous disadvantage? Asylum seekers?

The one question rarely asked is the one that really matters: where is the money going to come from?

Reality: Australia cannot afford the Gonski spend, plus the NDIS spend, plus the carbon reduction spend, plus the paid parental leave spend, plus the infrastructure surge, plus the promised increase in defence spending, plus the cost of unfunded retiring boomers, plus reducing indigenous disadvantage, plus $1 billion a year for asylum seekers. The revenue is simply not there. It is never going to be there under the present mix of existing tax arrangements, budget commitments, social welfare obligations, low productivity growth, ageing population and the debt-service burden. Yet the critique is all about spin and social equity.

It's not as if the challenge is insurmountable. It's just that the surmounting requires grit and focus from the government and a recognition by the media and the public that either there has to be policy triage, or much higher taxes, or both.