Thanks to those guys, Jack Abramoff and pals, lawmakers are taking far fewer privately paid trips overseas. Newly enacted ethics rules ban lawmakers from accepting travel gifts from registered lobbyists or organizations that employ one or more registered lobbyist. Congressional Quarterly reports that privately paid travel is off 43 percent from last year.

Legistorm – which tracks congressional travel – has a neat graphic showing the cost of private travel over time:

(Click through for interactivity.)