THE harsh light of fiscal reality was turned on for me during Kevin Rudd's fumbled bid to take over the nation's hospitals: it was admitted that, soon enough, just funding the hospitals would chew up the entire GST.

What follows is the realisation that the days of tax cuts, wine and roses are over. Once you grasp that, you quickly find more evidence that the task ahead is one of increasing the tax take if we just want to maintain the present level of public services, let alone lift the nation's performance and potential through improving social and physical infrastructure.

The demographic shock of the retiring baby boomer horde, the soaring health inflation rate, the urgent need to lift our education investment to at least the OECD average and bringing our transport infrastructure up to speed all require someone to pay for them. And, no, there actually isn't a Hockeynomics Magic Pudding that will provide for everything by cutting back on a few existing government programs.

It's not a story most people want to hear. We prefer the Great Political Lie, told often enough by both sides of politics, federal and state: electors can always expect to get more from government while paying less for it.

If politicians are incompetent enough to keep that promise, the ultimate outcome is Greece. We're a long way from Aegean Armageddon and it doesn't all happen tomorrow, but the very inconvenient truth about our tax future won't go away.