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Renita Jablonski: President Obama is holding a meeting today to discuss ways to pay down the federal budget deficit. It tops nearly a trillion and a half dollars, and is still growing. Ronni Radbill reports.

Ronni Radbill: The summit comes on the heels of Washington’s multibillion-dollar spending extravaganza. Today’s meeting takes a long-term look at shrinking the deficit, reforming things like health care and Social Security.

Robert Bixby heads up the conservative Concord Coalition. He says it’s important not to pour more cash into these programs.

Robert Bixby: This is not a matter of, you know, how much more money are we going to invest to try to do these things. It’s also going to be, how can we constrain the cost. Because right now, we have an unsustainable gap between what’s been promised and the revenues dedicated to pay for.

Roger Hickey co-directs Campaign for America’s future. He says health care is the root of our fiscal trouble. Changing the system will save money down the road.

Roger Hickey: Getting everybody covered under a universal health care system actually can give you the tools to rationalize the whole system and make it work more efficiently.

No matter the approach, everyone agrees it’s going to take cutting spending and raising taxes to fix our fiscal problems.

In Washington, I’m Ronni Radbill for Marketplace.