Stuart Butler

Butler was raised in Shropshire, England, and emigrated to the United States in 1975. He holds bachelor's degrees in physics and mathematics, a master's degree in economics, and a doctorate in American economic history from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.{{cite news | title=Heritage Theorist Targets City Woes; Stuart Butler Draws Supporters | newspaper=Washington Post | date=18 May 1986 }}

Butler joined The Heritage Foundation in 1979 as a policy analyst, specializing in health care and urban issues. After visiting tenements in the South Bronx and Washington, D.C., to discuss with residents how best to address problems with public housing, Butler published a paper for Heritage that introduced the idea of Urban Enterprise Zones in the United States. The idea caught the attention of many politicians, including Jack Kemp and, later, the Reagan Administration. By the mid-1990s, more than 30 states and the District of Columbia had instituted enterprise zones in depressed urban areas.{{cite news | title=The Policy Wonk's Zone of Influence; Stuart Butler Had A Great Idea. This Is What Happened to It | first=Jeffrey | last=Frank | newspaper=Washington Post | date=24 October 1992 }}

During the 1980s, Butler wrote three books on issues central to his work: Enterprise Zones: Greenlining the Inner Cities (1981), Privatizing Federal Spending (1985), and Out of the Poverty Trap (1987), co-authored with Anna Kondratas. In 1989, Butler also co-authored A National Health System for America with Edmund Haislmaier.

Butler has played a prominent role in the debate over health care reform, arguing for market-based solutions to high numbers of uninsured individuals and high health care costs. The health insurance mandate in the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is an idea hatched in 1989 by Butler at the Heritage Foundation, in a publication titled "Assuring Affordable Health Care for All Americans".{{cite news |url=https://www.foxnews.com/politics/individual-health-care-insurance-mandate-has-roots-two-decades-long/ | work=Fox News | title=Individual health care insurance mandate has roots two decades long | date=June 28, 2012}} This was also the model for Mitt Romney's health care plan in Massachusetts.{{cite news|title=How the Heritage Foundation, a Conservative Think Tank, Promoted the Individual Mandate|date=2011-10-20|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2011/10/20/how-a-conservative-think-tank-invented-the-individual-mandate/ | work=Forbes | first=Avik | last=Roy|access-date=2013-09-26}}

Heritage and Butler formulated an alternative proposal to President Bill Clinton's 1993 plan to overhaul health care.{{cite news | title=Republicans engage in factional warfare over health reform | first=Ruth | last=Shalit | newspaper=Dallas Morning news | date=30 January 1994 }} Michael Kinsley, then editor of The New Republic, called the Heritage proposal "the simplest, most promising, and in an important way, the most progressive idea for health care reform".{{cite news | title=An Offer You Can't Understand | first=David | last=Saltzman | url=http://www.lifeinsuranceselling.com/Issues/2008/4/Pages/Saltzman-An-Offer-You-Can-t-Understand.aspx?k=stuart+butler | newspaper=Life Insurance Selling | date=7 April 2008 | access-date=24 May 2011}} In 1999, The National Journal named Butler as one of 12 "key players" in the Washington health care debate.{{cite news | title=A Dozen Key Players | first=Marilyn | last=Serafini | newspaper=The National Journal | date=17 July 1999 }}

In the fall of 2002, Butler was a fellow for one semester at the Harvard Institute of Politics. Butler also received the George Washington Honor Medal for his work on urban policy and the Valley Forge Honor Certificate from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge for a book on privatization.{{cite web | url=http://www.iop.harvard.edu/Programs/Fellows-Study-Groups/Former-Fellows/Stuart_Butler | title=Stuart Butler| publisher=Harvard University | access-date= 26 May 2011}}

Starting in 2005,{{cite web |url=http://www.brookings.edu/projects/budget/Fiscal-Wake-Up-Tour.aspx |title=Fiscal Wake Up Tour |work=Brookings |access-date=26 May 2011}} Butler was a major participant in the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour{{cite web |url=http://www.concordcoalition.org/participants |title=Fiscal Wake Up Tour Participants |work=The Concord Coalition |access-date=26 May 2011}} – a group traveling the country to build public support for reforming Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Other experts involved in the tour include U.S. Comptroller General David Walker and analysts from the Brookings Institution and the Concord Coalition.{{cite news | title=Traveling Economists Sound Alarm on Fiscal Crisis | url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16404375 | newspaper=NPR | date=18 November 2007 | access-date=26 May 2011}} The tour continued up to September 2010.

After serving as Vice President for Domestic and Economic Policy Studies at Heritage since 1992, Butler became director of the Center for Policy Innovation at The Heritage Foundation in August 2010. He is the co-author of a plan designed to balance the budget within 10 years, called Saving the American Dream: Heritage's Plan to Fix the Debt, Cut Spending, and Restore Prosperity.{{cite web |url=http://savingthedream.org/about-the-plan/ |title=About The Plan |work=Saving The American Dream |publisher=The Heritage Foundation |access-date=27 July 2011}} which was released by Heritage in May 2011,{{cite news |title=How we would cut America's debt |first=Stuart |last=Butler |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-we-would-cut-americas-debt/2011/05/20/AFbv127G_story.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=20 May 2011 |access-date=26 May 2011}}

In September 2014, Butler left the Heritage Foundation and joined the Brookings Institution's Economic Studies program as a senior fellow.{{cite web|title=Conservative Thinker Stuart Butler Leaves Heritage for Brookings| work=The Wall Street Journal |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-WB-47781 |date=July 25, 2014 | url-access=subscription}} Butler is a board member of the Convergence Center for Policy Resolution, an organization that brings stakeholders together on contentious issues and uses professional facilitation to seek common ground. Butler is also a board member of Mary's Center,{{Cite web|url=https://www.brookings.edu/experts/stuart-m-butler/|title=Stuart M. Butler|date=2016-04-19|website=Brookings|language=en-US|access-date=2019-09-02}} a system of community clinics in Washington D.C. and Maryland.

Butler became a U.S. citizen in 1996. He and his wife reside in Washington, D.C. His brother is Eamonn Butler.

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• Publications at Brookings [http://www.brookings.edu/experts/butlers] {{unfit|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20100320163131/http://www.heritage.org/Research/All-Research?author_id=%7b101A114D-1A90-459D-B23E-8E1DE5089FB9%7d Heritage Publications by Stuart Butler]}}
• [http://www.concordcoalition.org/act/fiscal-wake-tour Concord Coalition Fiscal Wake-Up Tour]
• [http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/longterm/wakeuptour.html U.S. Government Accountability Office] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119000339/http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/longterm/wakeuptour.html |date=2012-01-19 }}
• [http://www.brookings.edu/projects/budget/Fiscal-Wake-Up-Tour.aspx Brookings Institution Fiscal Wake-Up Tour]
• {{C-SPAN|5215}}

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Category:1947 births

Category:Living people

Category:Alumni of the University of St Andrews

Category:English emigrants to the United States

Category:Harvard University staff

Category:McCourt School of Public Policy faculty

Category:The Heritage Foundation people