The fox in charge of the henhouse

Or otherwise - why Australia's federal budget is doomed.

Ken Henry and his band of looting socialist thugs at the Treasury have revealed their ugly stripes in a leaked report given to the PM in 2008.

THE private health insurance rebate paid to millions of Australians is "very poor policy" and should be dumped, according to a confidential briefing to Treasurer Wayne Swan.

Okay, so far, I follow you. After all, if the government was giving a 30 percent subsidy, we could have a tax cut in its place and use the savings, right?

Documents obtained by The Age reveal that Treasury, in one of its first briefings to the Rudd Government after its 2007 election win, urged Mr Swan to seriously consider scrapping the rebate. The briefing said the billions of dollars lost annually to the rebate would be better spent on public hospitals.

Bugger !

Money would be "better spent on public hospitals" ? Public hospitals who feed at the trough, fail to improve services despite their revenue doubling over a decade, and who control, regulate and ration out critical health services to the lucky few ?

How can such bad and unsound advice come from Treasury, who are appointed to spend tax-payers money ? Our budget is entirely doomed, we've already seen a couple of big states hit the financial brick wall (NSW + QLD), its easy to guess that Rudd will drive the federal government into the same situation by the time his first term is up.

But lets not worry about such things. Bless the money hole !