Alert the media! Congress flies on our dime, doesn’t return per diems!

Congress scrapped plans to spend $550 million on some new Gulfstream jets after their little plan was exposed. That’s a small victory for the American tax payer. But don’t start celebrating just yet. It isn’t like they’ve stopped using military aircraft to shuttle themselves and family members around the world.

According to John Fund at the Wall Street Journal, the legislative branch’s budget is up a whopping 10% this year. Have you increased your discretionary spending by 10% in the worst recession since the Great Depression? What’s worse, some of that “spending” is really just members of Congress taking per diem travel “reimbursement” even when they incur no expenses.

They don’t have to itemize expenses—a convenient arrangement since most costs are covered by the government or local hosts. Some trips subtract some hotel and meal costs from the per diems, others do not. “The policy is completely inconsistent,” one House member told me. Total per diem allowances (per person, including staff) can top $3,000 for a single trip. Unused funds are supposed to be given back to the government, but congressional records show that rarely happens.

It’s all part of the “arrogance of D.C.,” Sen. Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) told me Monday. “These are lucrative payments since many members have zero expenses overseas.” After his last government-sponsored trip to Iraq, Mr. Coburn wrote the U.S. Treasury a check for his unused per diem. Not wanting to be dependent on government handlers, he paid for his own trip to the Middle East a couple of years ago. “I learned a lot more on my own than on the government trips I’ve been on,” he says.

This is beyond arrogance. It’s down right criminal.