Gordon Brown's £144bn spending spree could land each household with £5,500 more tax

Senior officials are anxiously tracking the impact of more than 130 promises made by the Prime Minister that will test the public finances to the limit.

They fear he will be forced to choose between raising taxes by up to £5,000 per household or ditching the pledges.

There are growing concerns inside Whitehall about what some believe was a political spending spree orchestrated to boost Labour's chances if there had been a snap autumn election.

The Daily Mail has been told that ministers and top mandarins are becoming increasingly uneasy about the state of public finances under Mr Brown.

They fear a bruising test of wills between the Prime Minister and Alistair Darling, who told the Mail last week that he will "say 'No' more and more" to spendthrift plans by ministers.

A detailed study of Mr Brown's pledges since he took over from Tony Blair reveals what senior Government figures have warned privately is an "unsustainable extravagance".

A full list since June 27 shows 132 spending announcements totalling £144billion.

They range from £21.9billion for the schools building programme - the biggest pledge - to £50,000, the smallest amount, for headteachers to work in schools in Africa.

A significant number are already accounted for under the spending plans announced by Mr Darling last month.

But others, such as the Children's Plan announced by Schools Secretary Ed Balls, are unfunded.

One senior Government figure said: "No one has really noticed that since he's got in Gordon has let spending rip. He's promised money left and right, leaving the Treasury with some tough choices next year when they try to get to grips with his extravagance."

Mr Brown insists the "fundamentals of the British economy are sound" but official figures released last week showed the Government's monthly deficit hit a record high of £11.2billion in November.

Tax receipts are drying up, and turmoil in the markets has forced the Government to put privatisations worth more than £6billion on hold, leaving the Treasury short of cash.

Insiders concede the autumn turmoil that led to Mr Brown's spectacular collapse in the polls has obscured the way he has routinely deployed cash to promote Labour's public services agenda.

The Government was set an overall spending limit in October by the Chancellor when he unveiled the three-year Comprehensive Spending Review.

After a decade of lavish increases, Whitehall departments were told to tighten their belts.

Andrew Haldenby, director of the public services think tank Reform, said: "£144billion is an unexpected and massive increase in the size of government which would move the UK decisively away from being a low-tax, entrepreneurial economy."

He added: "Translated into a tax increase, this would mean a £5,500 tax increase for each household.

"The UK has already committed to a level of public spending which could not be funded in a recession.

"Even further commitments are reckless in the extreme. These decisions have increased significantly the risk of a 1976-type crisis."

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: "Gordon Brown is spraying around uncosted spending commitments with reckless abandon.

"It is further evidence of an increasingly desperate and weak Prime Minister who is putting his various relaunches ahead of sound public finances and economic stability."