U.S. legislative leaders take frequent trips on corporate jets

R. Jeffrey Smith and Derek Willis from The Washington Post analyzed federal campaign expenditure records to find that top congressional leaders "flew on corporate-owned jets at least 360 times from January 2001 to December 2004." Members of both parties took part in the practice, although leading Republicans flew more often than Democrats. "The records show that flights were provided by some of Washington's largest corporate interests, including tobacco, telecommunications, business consulting, securities, air transport, insurance, pharmaceutical, railroad and food companies."