It represents the business leaders the president will meet with on Wednesday are members of the new Fix the Debt coalition, which has raised about $40 million to urge lawmakers and their constituents to support a plan that combines spending cuts with new revenue. That session will follow Mr. Obama’s meeting with labor leaders on Tuesday. His first trip outside Washington to engage the public will come after Thanksgiving, since Mr. Obama is scheduled to leave next weekend on a diplomatic trip to Asia. Travel plans are still sketchy, partly because his December calendar is full of the traditional holiday parties. Democrats said the White House’s strategy of focusing both inside and outside of Washington was smart. “You want to avoid getting sucked into the Beltway inside-baseball games,” said Joel Johnson, a former adviser in the Clinton White House and the Senate. “You can still work toward solutions, but make sure you get out of Washington while you are doing that.The president must use his leverage soon, some Democrats added, because it could quickly wane as Republicans look to the 2014 midterm elections, when the opposition typically takes seats from the president’s party in Congress. In particular, Mr. Obama has to convince Republicans that he would veto an extension of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts for incomes of $250,000 and higher, said John Podesta, a chief of staff to President Bill Clinton who oversaw Mr. Obama’s 2008 presidential transition. The top tax rate of 35 percent would increase after Dec. 31 to 39.6 percent, the rate in place during the Clinton administration, raising about $1 trillion over 10 years. it represents a time capsule,” in the words of Mr. Kiser, a rare snapshot in time, undisturbed through more than a century of urban construction around it.
