The Early Word: Fight Prep As Congress girds for the fiscal battles of the coming months, the cadre of business executives and former lawmakers at Fix the Debt have proved to be "the most visible and well-financed advocates for reining in the federal deficit." But Nicholas Confessore writes that their private interests threaten to clash with their public goals, as many of them have deep ties to the financial industry or are lobbyists or executives for major companies acting aggressively to steer the tax code to favor their balance sheets. President Obama is expected to nominate as his budget director, Jacob J. Lew, to replace the departing Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner. Jackie Calmes notes that the selection of yet another budget negotiator for the financial team completes a shift from emphasis on a global financial crisis to the continuing budget fights with Republicans in Congress. However, when combined with the departures of Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, it also highlights a dearth of female advisers surrounding Mr. Obama as he enters his second term. Would the president use a penny-size platinum coin minted with "In God We Trust" and a 1 with 12 zeros behind it to avoid a debt-ceiling standoff with Congressional Republicans? Probably not, Annie Lowrey writes, but Washington is having a field day imagining that Mr. Geithner would trot out the trillion-dollar coin to wipe out a chunk of the country's debt obligations as one of his final acts in office. In the unlikely absence of a standoff, maybe Congress could get around to revising the tax code. The ombudsman of the Internal Revenue Service is calling for Congress to simplify the behemoth system of rules, blaming it for lost revenues and unneeded stress to taxpayers, Catherine Rampell reports. Happening in Washington: Economic reports scheduled for release Thursday include weekly jobless claims at 8:30 a.m., followed at 10 by weekly mortgage rates, wholesale trade for November, and job openings and labor turnover for November. At 9, Thomas J. Donohue, the chief executive of the United States Chamber of Commerce, will deliver his annual speech on the state of American business. At 5 p.m., Mrs. Clinton and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan will meet and have a working dinner. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will meet with hunters, gun owners and entertainment executives in a second day of meetings on gun control.