Taxpayers foot bill for more than $1 million in car leases.

Publication: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau (Washington) (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News)

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COPYRIGHT 2006 Knight Ridder Washington Bureau

Byline: Matt Stearns

WASHINGTON _ Taxpayers paid more than $1 million last year for members of Congress to lease vehicles, including dozens of gas-guzzling SUVs and expensive luxury cars.

Some members of Congress use their office budgets to lease Lexuses, Lincolns, Cadillacs, an Infiniti, even a BMW 530i, which one auto critic called "one of the world's best sport luxury sedans." The lease prices of some cars topped $1,000 a month.

A few leased two cars on the taxpayers' dime; two lawmakers leased three.

Leasing cars is a little-known perk used by 136 members of the 435-member House of Representatives in 2005. The Senate doesn't allow its members to lease cars with their office budgets. Last year, the House leases cost at least $1.05 million. Taxpayers also paid for hundreds of thousands of dollars more in gas and insurance.

Defenders of the system say that leasing cars can be cheaper than reimbursing lawmakers for driving their own cars through districts that often sprawl over thousands of miles. If members and staff use their own cars on official business, the House reimburses them a maximum of 44.5 cents per mile.

Critics agree that the...

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