To read that story about the ludicrous extravagance represented by those new congressional jets was maddening for all the obvious reasons, but also for this (my emphasis added) from the WSJ’s report:

Lawmakers disclosed they spent about $13 million traveling the world last year, a tenfold increase since 1995, when travel records first were made available electronically. The travel costs are covered by an unlimited fund created by a three-decade-old law. This month, for example, 11 separate congressional delegations will swing through Germany. House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio is leading five other lawmakers on a trip around the world. Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.) is taking a group of senators and their spouses to Europe for three weeks. A spokesman for Mr. Boehner said he couldn’t comment on the trip for security reasons. A spokeswoman for Mr. Shelby said the same.

Now it may be that these are essential fact-finding missions for the lawmakers in question and, in the latter case, their wives, but if the GOP is to rebuild its credentials (and yes, they badly need rebuilding) as the party of fiscal prudence, a reputation that could be an enormous asset in 2010 and 2012, these are exactly the stories that we should not be seeing — at least without very good explanation indeed.