Senate Republicans rejected an extension of a program that expanded food aid to families affected by the coronavirus pandemic in their relief proposal but included a provision which would double the “three-martini lunch” deduction for business meals.

The Census Bureau reported that about 26 million adults and between 8 to 15 million children live in households that did not have enough food last month. Images around the country, from Arizona and Texas to New York and Massachusetts, show mile-long lines at food banks amid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

But the Republican Health, Economic Assistance, Liability Protection and Schools Act (HEALS Act), which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., unveiled on Monday, did not include either an expansion of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps, or an extension of the Pandemic EBT program, which provides aid to families with children who recently lost access to free meals at schools, The Washington Post reports. It does, however, include a tax break on business lunches.

“It is deeply […]