If you’d like an all-expense-paid trip to a foreign country complete with five-star amenities, just become a member of Congress.

Lawmakers take scores of overseas trips each year … [t]he cost they reported for such travel abroad was $13 million in 2008, a 70% jump from 2005, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of travel records. Lawmakers don’t have to report the cost of domestic travel when the government pays. The $13 million didn’t include the expense of flying on Air Force planes, which lawmakers don’t have to disclose.  [benefits of being important]

This would generally be the place where we remind folks that it was this same Congress who blasted automaker CEOs for wasting money by flying to DC on private aircraft – like a pot calling the kettle black type comment – but we’re tired.