Dean Clancy is a policy analyst, consultant, opinion writer, and public speaker with more than twenty years’ high-level policy experience in Congress, the White House, and the U.S. health care industry. Clancy is also:
- A partner at Adams Auld LLC, a public policy consultancy, where he advises clients on a host of matters, with an emphasis on U.S. health care financing and tax policy.
- President and founder of HSAs for All, a nonprofit advocacy organization that seeks to give every American access to affordable, high-quality health care by giving every American access to a tax-advantaged Health Savings Account.
- A member of the board of directors of Opportunity Solutions Project (OSP). OSP is the political arm of the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), which promotes commonsense welfare reform.
- An advisor to the Compact for America Educational Foundation (CFA). CFA is a citizen advocacy organization that works to promote the state-led movement to secure a debt-limitation amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
- A member of the Default Clock Review Committee. The Default Clock is a project of CFA that works to alert the public about the dangers of excessive government debt.
Clancy has a strong interest in what he dubs ‘renewing the promise of American life’ through reforms rooted in common sense and the universal principles of the American founding. He seeks equal opportunity for all through a return to a strictly limited, constitutional government and the traditional American policy mix of ‘balanced budgets, sound money, and no income tax.’ More specifically, he advocates the civil-rights and free-labor principles of Abraham Lincoln, the honest-money and small-government policies of Andrew Jackson, and the full-dinner-pail economics of William McKinley.
A strong advocate for federalism, separation of powers, and local self-government, Clancy is strongly pro-life and dedicated to ending what he calls ‘the judicial usurpation of democracy.’ He has compiled an American renewal plan that he believes would reverse the errors of Progressivism and restore America’s founding principles to the center of the nation’s life. ‘We already know the formula for happiness,’ he says. ‘We just have to follow it.’
In political terms, Clancy describes himself as a ‘decentralist,’ eschewing such familiar labels as ‘conservative,’ ‘liberal,’ and ‘libertarian,’ which he says have lost their usefulness through overextension. ‘I’m absolutely passionate about the need for us to follow the Constitution as originally understood, and I basically oppose monopoly and stand for the little guy and common sense.’
Clancy names E.F. Schumacher and Orestes Brownson as important influences on his thinking, as well as a trio of British Christians with initials for first names: C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and J.R.R. Tolkien. He has written: ‘James Madison is my homeboy, Walker Percy is my spirit guide, and Toshiro Mifune is my BSF (best samurai forever). And I would rather be George Smiley than James Bond.’
‘To me, the happiest kind of life is the one in which you forget yourself in the service of others, pursue justice without fear, and let yourself be moved by wonder and beauty.’ Optimistic by temperament, Clancy gives as his philosophy: ‘Be of good cheer, there’s always hope. After all, life’s an adventure, each new day is an opportunity, and every person is a miracle, even the annoying ones.’
Clancy was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and grew up in Aurora, Colorado. He and his wife have four children.