The publication of the Treasury assessment of the previous government's spending record on the Treasury's website, follows a speech by Treasury Secretary Ken Henry this week that attacked both the previous government's policy of "aspirational nationalism" and the thinking behind its $10billion water plan.

The Treasury says the views expressed in the document are those of authors Kirsty Laurie and Jason McDonald from the Treasury's budget division and not necessarily those of the department itself.

The release comes as Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner confirms in an interview in today's Canberra Times that entire government programs, including tax concessions, are facing his razor gang's axe.

The Treasury report says that in the past decade of Coalition government inflation-adjusted spending jumped from $175 billion to $261billion, and is on track to hit $282 billion unless wound back.

It says real government spending grew faster between 2004-05 and 2007-08 than in any four-year period since the 1990's recession.

It says the Howard government's surge in spending was unusual, along with a surge in spending by the Whitlam government in the 1970s, in taking place at a time when the economy is not in recession.

The economic cost of the surge was much higher than it would have been at another time because the economy was "operating at close to its limits of capacity" and resources had to be redirected to the government from other parts of the economy.

Employment in the public service had swelled 29 per cent since 1998 and was likely to be "reducing the supply of highly educated labour to the rest of the economy". This is because the proportion of public servants with at least a bachelor's degree was almost twice that of the private sector 40 per cent, compared with 23 per cent.

The number of new decisions announced in each budget had doubled over the Howard decade with most of the new decisions involving relatively small parcels of money each worth less than $100million over the forward estimates.