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Finally, a prominent Missouri Republican has recognized the problem of poverty.

Last week, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder made by claiming that his 10 years in the state’s most superfluous $86,000-a-year job have led to “gradual impoverishment.”

He wants the same $103-a-day in per-diem expense money that legislators get when they’re in session, only Mr. Kinder wants it for any day he’s in Jefferson City.

The sheer chutzpah of this is mind-boggling. Mr. Kinder is so far out of touch, it’s like he’s from Pluto, not Cape Girardeau.

Here’s a conservative Republican who wants taxpayers — who already pay him roughly double the median annual state income to do a job with roughly no duties — to further subsidize his peripatetic lifestyle.

Here’s a guy whose political career has dead-ended (who runs for lieutenant governor three times?) but who nonetheless maintains a mid-six-figure campaign account. He lives well off that account. In the last , he billed it for $7,032 in mileage, $1,013 in meals and $2,061.42 for 15 nights in hotels, most of them in St. Louis.

At least he’s no longer billing taxpayers for hotel stays. In 2011, he repaid the state he’d been reimbursed for hotel stays at upscale hostelries like the Chase Park Plaza and the Ritz-Carlton. He said at the time the money was his own, not his campaign’s.

It’s easy to understand why Mr. Kinder might feel bored, and even deprived, considering the kinds of people he hangs out with. If his wealthy friends and donors want him to live beyond his means, that’s up to them. But there’s not much he can do for them as long as Gov. Jay Nixon is upright and taking nourishment.

By law, the lieutenant governor presides over the state Senate and breaks ties. In practice, the president pro-tem runs the Senate and can designate whomever he wants to preside. It’s tedious work, and most lieutenant governors have avoided it.

Aside from sitting on a few boards and commissions, there’s not much else for them to do, though Mr. Kinder’s office has a to help him do it. In 2008, the Post-Dispatch on Mr. Kinder’s practice of paying staff members for doing campaign work. When staff members took leave to work on political affairs, Mr. Kinder would split their state salaries among other members of his staff, even though they frequently reported working fewer hours for the state.

Mr. Kinder’s campaign slogan in 2008 was “Every dollar counts.”

It still does, which is why he should continue to scrape by on the $86,000 salary without dunning taxpayers for more. Failing that, the state should take away his salary and his health care benefits and pay him the $1.36-a-meal food stamp allotment. Let him find out what “impoverished” really means in Missouri.

Maybe Mr. Kinder, a lawyer, should get a side job, as previous lieutenant governors have done. In 2004, former Lt. Gov. Kenneth J. Rothman explained why he’d practiced law during his term in office:

“They don’t pay like it’s full time. I don’t think it’s full time unless you are severely mentally challenged.”