Reaching for a New Deal
With the support of the Foundation, political scientists Theda Skocpol (Harvard University) and Lawrence Jacobs (University of Minnesota) formed a working group to track the course and fate of Obama's efforts to reorient domestic policy during 2009 and 2010. Members traced developments in eight specific policy areas: health reform, financial regulation, energy and climate change, tax policy, higher education funding, primary and secondary school reform, immigration policy, and labor law reform. Employing a variety of data sources, including interviews with key actors, the scholars in this project highlight the institutional and political constraints that channel and limit changes, especially changes intended to mitigate social and economic inequalities in the United States.