Senate Republicans on Thursday throttled Democratic attempts to amend the state’s two-year budget before voting in favor of a version aimed at giving a boost to small businesses and schools and clamping down on abortion providers.
A 23-10 party-line vote, which followed a daylong debate, sent the bill to a conference committee, where members from both the Senate and House will make final adjustments to the nearly $62 billion budget before sending it to the governor for his signature.
A 50 percent small-business tax cut is the cornerstone of the Republican-controlled Senate’s budget. The Senate also included a version of Republican Gov. John Kasich’s school funding formula, but raised state aid to districts from $6.3 billion this school year to over $7 billion in 2014-15..
“This is the largest investment in our public school districts by the General Assembly in more than a decade,” said Senate President Keith Faber in a statement emailed seconds after the budget passed,adding that the small-business tax cut will allow small-business owners to invest back into their companies and will be a boon to Ohio’s economic growth.
Senate Minority Leader Eric Kearney said the budget “lacks vision.”
“We should have passed a budget that funds and protects our greatest assets – our children – by investing an additional $480 million into education,” he said. “Overall, I am disappointed by the actions of the legislature today.”
Among the Democratic caucus’ failed attempts to change the budget was a proposal to bolster the state’s poorest school districts.
Senate Democrats unsuccessfully introduced 23 amendments, including moves to eliminate House-added language that would strip funds from Planned Parenthood and Senate-added language that would ban abortion providers from transferring patients to public hospitals.
The only Democratic amendment to be added Thursday was a $75,000 yearly earmark for Youngstown State University’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies.
Kasich’s budget unveiled in February included sweeping tax reform, and attempted to slash income taxes for all Ohioans by 20 percent and drop the sales tax rate from 5.5 percent down to 5 percent, while extending the tax to a broad array of services.
The governor also called for raising taxes on large oil and gas drillers, but the House in April scuttled Kasich’s tax ideas in favor of a permanent 7 percent income tax cut.
Once the Senate took up the budget, lawmakers ditched the 7 percent income tax cut and reintroduced the small-business tax cut Kasich initially proposed.
Both chambers nixed Kasich’s proposed Medicaid expansion which would have provided health care coverage to thousands of Ohio’s working poor. Lawmakers are discussing Medicaid reform proposals outside the budget.
Women’s health care advocates have lambasted the latest budget for what they called back-door attacks on Planned Parenthood and other legal abortion providers.
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