Members of Congress and their families have taken nearly $14.4 million worth of trips in the last 4 1/2 years - with private interests picking up the tab. some members took privately funded trips to make speeches in places like Pittsburgh and Peoria, Ill., Others went on fact-finding jaunts to Aspen, Colo., or spent $3,000 on meals at a five-day conference in Barcelona, Spain.

The most popular destination was Florida, with 558 trips, followed by California with 386 and New York with 354. West Virginia, home to the luxurious Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, was the fourth most popular destination, with 223 trips.

Private interests spent $14,388,672 since Jan.1, 2000, to send House and Senate members on 4,851 trips.

In all, senators took 1,071 trips, House members 3,781.

This is a fascinating Article,Learn More under Resources

Not enough, but it should be paid for by the taxpayers. Congressmen and Senators should not be sitting isolated in Washington DC. They should fly back to visit their constituents as often as possible. And fact finding trips to foreign locations, and domestic and foreign conferences, are important as well. Congressmen don't travel alone either, they need support people and security, and that must run to money as well. It is money well spent if they are communicating with constituents, experts, peers, or foreign leaders.

What is a scandal is that many trips are paid for by private companies and lobbyists. That does the public no service and contributes to a climate of corruption. Congressmen and Senators should not be able to accept free trips from businesses.

I think people are mixing up official Congressional travel with lobbyist sponsored travel, as well as foreign travel.

As a person very familiar with Congress, please allow me to clear some of this up.

Every Member of Congress(and I'm including US Senators in that term) get an annual budget. The budget varies from Member to Member, depending on the population of the state (in the case of Senators) and the distance from Washington DC to their District (in the case of Congressman). Members frequently travel to their home District. This counts as official travel, and every time a Member goes home to their District, that trip comes out of their official budget (which is why a Congressman from Hawaii gets more money allotted to their budget than a member from Maryland--the trips are more expensive).

Although this travel comes out of their annual budget (the Member's Representational Allowance, or MRA), it is not tallied up separately from postage, salaries, office supplies, office rent, etc. It all comes out of the same budget. And though the costs of each item are made public, I don't know of any group that tallies up how much is spent solely on travel.

Another kind of travel is lobbyist-sponsored trips. It is incorrect to say that Members fly on private jets. The ethics rules passed by Congress when the Democrats took over after the 2006 elections outlawed Members flying on private jets (unless they are paying for it themselves, obviously). However, lobbyists do sponsor fact finding missions. For example, the railroad industry can pay for a Member who works on the Transportation committee to fly out and see a locomotive factory, or a new train station, or something of the like. These are private funds, and the costs are often not available.

The last kind of travel is foreign trips that Members take. These are called Congressional Delegations (or Codels). If a group of Members is interested in traveling to Iraq, for example, they will get together and set up a trip. Typically it will be a US Air Force jet that will fly them overseas. This travel is also paid for by the US government, but does not come out of a Member's personal budget. The costs of these trips are often not made public, for security reasons.

The taxpaying public has access to much of this information. If somebody wants to find out how much a trip to a home district (out of the MRA). However, again, I don't know of anybody who puts all this information together in an easy-to-read way, and I also don't know of any statistics that show the total amounts of each travel cost.

However, you can visit www.legistorm.com to look up some of the privately-funded travel expenses. That website has a lot of information about trips (as well as salaries and many other pieces of information). In addition, the House of Representatives and the Senate publish a book every few months detailing every single thing a Member's office has spent money on. You can look up each office and see every office supply purchase, every dollar in salary paid, and every trip home a Member took. The book is published by the Government Printing Office, so you can go to www.gpo.gov and see if you can get a copy. They are distributed to every Congressional office but I don't know if they can be mailed to the general public.

Hope this helps!

I guess you're one of many people who would like to know this, but unfortunately the situation is summed up very well by this article stating that "...the amount taxpayers spend on ... travel for Congress is a tightly guarded secret."

Nobody apart from the US Government know, they don't release figures on it unfortunately!

Domestic Travel (to and from District/State):

House: Included in office expenses is a minimum amount of $9,700 (2003), with additional funding based on a formula that uses the distance from Washington, DC to the farthest point in the Congressional district from Washington.

Senate: The official expense allowance is based overall on population and distance, and includes travel.

More info here:
http://www.thecapitol.net/FAQ/payandperqs.htm

Congressmen are provided with travel funds based on the distance of their district (or state, for Senators) from Washington, DC. When the taxpayers foot the bill, they usually fly commercially. I have been on multiple flights with Congressmen. I have had a few good conversations with some.