Contributing Writer
contributed photo
Buried in last year’s COVID-19 relief deal is a provision to make taxpayers cover expensive corporate lunches.
While the world is reeling from the pandemic and American democracy faces a profound crisis, corporate lobbyists have been focused on making taxpayers subsidize lavish lunches for wealthy executives.
Their work paid off in the 11th-hour COVID-19 relief deal Congress passed late last year. Buried in the details of this modest aid plan is a provision to give executives unlimited tax deductions for their business meals for two years.
That’s how it worked back in the 1970s, when presidential candidate George McGovern had this to say about it: “There’s something fundamentally wrong with the tax system,” he said, “when it allows a corporate executive to deduct his $20 martini lunch while a working man cannot deduct the price of his bologna sandwich.”