Kurt Couchman is senior fellow in fiscal policy for Americans for Prosperity. He develops and supports innovative solutions to federal and state budget and governance challenges while promoting freedom, prosperity, and opportunity.
He comments regularly on talk radio and television programs, and his opinion articles have appeared on Fox News, National Review, The Ripon Forum, Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, Townhall, The Hill, CNN, The National Interest, and elsewhere.
Couchman writes and speaks extensively about strengthening legislatures through holistic budgeting, preventing shutdowns, statutory and constitutional budget targets, and more to improve Americans’ quality of life. He has contributed chapters to A Fiscal Cliff: New Perspectives on the U.S. Federal Debt Crisis (Cato, 2020) and Public Debt Sustainability: International Perspectives (Lexington, 2022). He is the author of Fiscal Democracy in America: How a Balanced Budget Amendment Can Restore Sound Governance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), a co-author with Graham Owens of Building Up Congress: A Pocket Guide, and author of Recover Stronger: A Debt Crisis Playbook for Policymakers.
Couchman has held positions with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Defense Priorities, the Cato Institute, Sunoco, Inc., and Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. He has served in the offices of several members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Couchman has testified to state legislatures and to Congress about solutions to the ongoing U.S. fiscal crisis, having appeared before the House Budget Committee several times and the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.
Couchman has a master’s degree in economics from George Mason University and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Indiana University of Pennsylvania/Cook Honors College. He and his family reside in northern Virginia.
