Our economy is in great shape today, as clearly revealed by the absence of the economy as a major campaign theme for today’s Congressional election. A healthy economy is a legacy for the next generation.

But in coming decades, unsustainable parts of federal law—including health care and Social Security — could cripple our economy and with it our children’s financial well-being. Regardless of the election’s outcome, Congress should take notice.

Our economy is humming along. Employment is up, unemployment is down, and inflation is under control. Current gross domestic product is $13.3 trillion, or more than $44,000 per American. Personal income now exceeds $11 trillion or more than $37,000 per American.

Practically every American generation, including ours, has, on average, been better off than their parents. We have every reason to believe that our children will be even better off. That belief would more likely become a reality if we would rely less on taxing the expected future income of our children to support us in our old age.

Before 1930, intergenerational transfers of income and wealth were strictly familial. Parents raised children, and, in turn, children supported parents in their old age in days when life expectancies were shorter and health care for the elderly limited or nonexistent.

Among the many innovations of the New Deal was a tax on future generations to pay for the retirement years of older generations in the Social Security program. Intergenerational transfers were formalized from a matter of family decency to a government tax. In the 1960s, the intergenerational tax was expanded to cover health care with the Medicare program.

When life expectancy at age 65 was only a few more years, when the elderly were a small portion of the popultion, and when retirement and healthcare benefits were few, an intergenerational tax was a relatively small burden. Today, none of these conditions holds. Someday, there may be as many elderly as working Americans, most of us will live long beyond 65, and the retirement and health care benefits we will demand are staggering.

Current projected tax revenues over the next several decades simply do not begin to pay for the projected costs of obligated Social Security, Medicare, and other health care and retirement programs. The net present value of the difference between projected governmental revenues and projected governmental costs is sometimes called the fiscal gap. Many economists have estimated the fiscal gap in the tens of trillions of dollars. Professor Laurence Kotlikoff of Boston University estimates the gap at $63 trillion or several times our current GDP.

Perhaps an even greater harm from these intergenerational taxes is the unintended consequences of stifling innovation and even joy in the health care and retirement professions. Just try asking a doctor or nurse who is matching wits with a Medicare form why many young people today shun the health care profession. Imagine how much more rapidly our economy would grow if the health care and retirement sectors, perhaps 20% of the economy, were liberated from current bureaucratic limitations.

Of course, today’s elderly have reasonably planned on retiring with present retirement benefits. It would be cruel to deny them those benefits. But it would be equally cruel to future generations of retirees to continue to promise the current range of government retirement benefits. And it would be cruel to individuals of any age who depend on a health care system that has been enervated by dysfunctional programs designed to benefit the elderly but actually benefiting no one.

In today’s election, there is hardly a candidate who is running on a platform of a fiscal gap or cutting future retirement or health care benefits. Indeed, some candidates irresponsibly promise to expand Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Financial markets rationally assume that these long-term problems will be solved in the future, and they will. Raising the retirement age would help, but it would only lessen the problem. One generation must shoulder the burden and pay not only for its parents’ retirement and health care but for its own as well. That generation is ours. The next Congress should take steps to stop us financing our retirement through taxes imposed on our children.

A former FCC commissioner, Mr. Furchtgott-Roth is president of Furchtgott-Roth Economic Enterprises. He can be reached at hfr@furchtgott-roth.com