Congressmen did plenty of traveling on corporate jets last year -- with Sen Trent Lott (R-MS) and Sen Harry Reid (D-LV) racking up the most frequent flyer miles from lobbyists.Campaign committees have to pay for the jets' use -- at the rate of what a first class ticket to the same destination would have cost.
PoliticalMoneyLine.com keeps track of that sort of thing.
They found Sen Lott repaid corporations $40,000 for using their planes on 18 trips.
And Sen Reid repaid companies around $4,500 for six trips on their planes.
Even though Congress members may repay a company for the plane -- they may still owe the company a favor.
Afterall, they make the first move, calling some executive and seeing if a private jet is available.
And some of the companies who've proveded the planes to Senators Lott and Reid spent a total of $8.94 million dollars lobbying Congress -- in just the first six months of last year.
And that's without the jet fuel added in. (PoliticalMoneyLine.com)
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