The Hill reports Congressional travel expenses are soaring rapidly. No doubt impressed by the Obama's profligate use of our money, Congress has followed suit:

The Senate is on pace to set an all-time high for foreign travel costs this year, with a burn rate that is 30 percent higher than the first half of last year.

According to travel disclosures published in the Congressional Record, from Jan. 1 to July 1 the federal government spent $2.6 million to cover the costs of overseas travel for Senators and their staff. Over the same period last year, the Senate reported foreign travel costs of just more than $2 million.

At the current rate, the Senate's reported travel tab for the year would exceed $5 million for the first time, and that number dramatically understates the true costs to taxpayers of the chamber's trips abroad.

As Roll Call reported last week, the Congressional Research Service recently tallied Congressional foreign travel expenditure reports and concluded that the cost of these trips has more than tripled since 1994. That year, the Senate reported spending $1.3 million on foreign travel; in 2002 that total had risen to $2.6 million, and in 2008 the Senate reported spending $4.9 million, according to the CRS. Last year the total dropped to $4.4 million.

Read it all and learn that this is the tip of the iceberg, the total cost of these taxpayer funded jaunts is much, much higher.

Clarice Feldman