Former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Larry Gibbs appeared on the State Bar of Texas Podcast to discuss the U.S. national debt. The discussion covered the federal government's rapidly increasing national debt (now at over $22 trillion) and the annual federal operating deficits that soon will exceed $1 trillion each and that every year that will add that amount to the size of our national debt; how other countries, such as China, are financing our debt; and what could happen if we default on our national debt. "What I'm suggesting is that people begin to start educating themselves about our escalating national debt, our annual deficits, and our other spending programs, and then people should start contacting their elected federal politicians to do something about our debt before it is too late," Gibbs said.