WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama heads to Florida on Tuesday to crank up more pressure on lawmakers to pass his mammoth stimulus plan, a day after warning of catastrophe if they do not act this week.

The president, fresh from his first White House news conference on Monday, will fly aboard Air Force One to the Fort Myers area, which is hobbled by 10 percent unemployment and America's highest mortgage foreclosure rate.

The trip was the latest campaign-style blitz designed to recapture the dominance of the media which marked Obama's election campaign, after a challenge from Republicans opposed to the 800 billion dollar plus stimulus.

Obama will hold a town-hall style event, designed to surround him with Americans facing a struggle to pay their bills and keep their jobs, while Congress slowly works through the process of passing the bill.

"Doing too little or nothing at all will result in an even greater deficit of jobs, incomes; and confidence," Obama said, at his news conference, three weeks after taking office in the eye of economic and foreign policy storms.

"That is a deficit that could turn a crisis into a catastrophe, and I refuse to let that happen."

In an intriguing political sideshow, Obama was set to appear with Florida's Republican Governor Charlie Crist, who supported John McCain in the general election but who draws support from centrist swing voters who tilted the key battleground state towards Obama last November.

The president, despite his growing frustration with Republicans in Washington, has been keen to adopt a bipartisan tone consistent with his campaign vow to drain the bile from Washington politics.

In 2008, the Coral-Fort Myers area had the highest foreclosure rate in the United States, with 12 percent of home units being hit by a foreclosure related notice, Real Estate groups said.

And according to the Florida Association of Realtors, median house prices have fallen to a third of their previous rate, and now sit at just over $100,000.

The Senate was later Tuesday expected to pass its version of an $838 billion stimulus plan and Obama wants both chambers of Congress to combine competing bills and send him a final version of the plan by the end of this week.

Obama was also expected to highlight his plan to overhaul the debt-laden banking sector, due to be outlined later Tuesday by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.