The Wall Street Journal reports:
Spending by lawmakers on taxpayer-financed trips abroad has risen sharply in recent years, a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records shows, involving everything from war-zone visits to trips to exotic spots such as the Galápagos Islands.
The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That’s a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago. . .
The Journal analysis, based on information published in the Congressional Record, also shows that taxpayer-funded travel is a big and growing perk for lawmakers and their families. Some members of Congress have complained in recent months about chief executives of bailed-out banks, insurance companies and car makers who sponsored corporate trips to resorts or used corporate jets for their own travel.
Although complete travel records aren’t yet available for 2009, it appears that such costs continue to rise. The Journal analysis shows that the government has picked up the tab for travel to destinations such as Jamaica, the Virgin Islands and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. . .
Often, lawmakers combine trips to war zones with visits to more tranquil spots. In February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a day. Before landing in Kabul, the eight lawmakers and their entourage of spouses and aides spent eight days in Italy, spending $57,697 on hotels and meals.
(Emphasis mine.)
Unpacking the numbers, congressional junketing increased 12% per year from 2001 to 2007. In 2007 it jumped to 22% per year.
And speaking of government waste, there’s this item:
Members of Congress said Thursday that details of their expense claims wouldn’t be posted online before mid-November at the earliest — two and a half months later than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said they would be published in an electronic format for the first time.
Ms. Pelosi set an August 31 deadline for putting information about expenses claimed by members of the House of Representatives on the Internet, in an announcement reversing a longstanding policy of providing the information only in books totaling about 12,000 pages a year. The Senate has not announced any plans to put its expenses claims online.
The speaker’s announcement last month followed a series of Wall Street Journal articles on bonus payments and expense claims for luxury cars and high-end technology made by congressional offices.
Internet Scofflaw 