COLUMBUS — The Ohio Senate on Wednesday passed its vision for the next $65 billion, two-year budget that majority Republicans argued should help the state weather what they hope are temporary clouds over Ohio’s economy.

Democrats accused Republicans of defending past tax cuts for small businesses at the expense of health care for lower-income families, education, and local governments.

Attention shifts Thursday to a House-Senate conference committee that must work out a compromise between the two chambers’ budgets capable of getting to Gov. John Kasich’s desk by June 30.

A single Democrat joined all Republicans in passing the plan by a vote of 24-8. Northwest Ohio senators Randy Gardner (R., Bowling Green), Matt Huffman (R., Lima), Cliff Hite (R., Findlay), and Dave Burke (R., Marysville) all supported the bill. Sen. Edna Brown (D., Toledo), did not.

The plan would cut more than $1 billion from the proposed budget that Mr. Kasich sent lawmakers five months ago. It slices many agency budgets across the board by 3 to 4 percent. It also as of July 1, 2018, freezes enrollment in the Medicaid expansion that the governor has championed over objections of many in his party.

“The budget we are asked to vote on today continues to offer short-sighted, short-term solutions for long-term problems …,” Sen. Mike Skindell (D., Lakewood) said. “The cuts in this budget leave Ohio vulnerable. Once more, the wealthy big businesses fare far better than working families …”

The greatly outnumbered Democrats tried to undo an existing break that forgives all income taxes for small businesses on their first $250,000 in earnings.

They proposed using the roughly $2.2 billion the repeal would raise over two years to invest in such things as college financial aid, local governments, K-12 schools, and early childhood education.

But Sen. Matt Huffman (R., Lima) jumped to the defense of the tax break and accused Democrats of painting neighborhood florists, restaurants, coffee shops, and dry cleaners that have benefited from the exemption as “villains.”

“Sure, income tax revenue is down, maybe by $1 billion,” he said. “We’ll see what the number ultimately is. But that was the prediction — that it would drop. We were going to give an income tax cut, and that’s exactly what happened.”

Tax collections have trailed expectations over the last year, prompting Mr. Kasich and GOP legislative leaders two months ago to agree that at least $800 million had to be cut from the governor’s more optimistic budget proposal.

Senate Republicans aimed even higher, fully expecting the sluggish tax performance to continue in the near future. The conference committee will get updated revenue and spending projections on Thursday.

Gone is any talk of Mr. Kasich’s tax reform package that would have traded higher taxes on sales, tobacco, alcohol, and shale oil and natural gas for more personal income tax cuts.

But that didn’t stop lawmakers from putting a few smaller tax breaks into the plan.

The Senate kept the House’s new sales tax exemption for prescription eyewear beginning on July 1, 2019, and narrowed its exemption on plays on digital jukeboxes beginning on Oct. 1, 2017.

The Senate added a new break for premium cigars, capping the maximum tax at 50 cents each, adjusted annually for inflation. Current law taxes cigars at 17 percent of the wholesale price. It doubled the tax deduction to $4,000 for savings accounts for college and care for the disabled.

Sen. Randy Gardner (R., Bowling Green) noted that, despite cuts elsewhere, public colleges, universities and K-12 schools as a whole were spared basic aid cuts.

While offering $71 million less overall in K-12 basic aid than the House plan would have, he noted that 535 of about 610 districts would be spared cuts or see increases through the basic-aid formula.

That’s before the formulas factor in the effects of a continued phase-out of replacement revenue from a pair of now defunct business taxes.

“We agree that we need to count students, but we do so in a different way (than the House and governor proposed),” Mr. Gardner said.

“We only go back two years in looking at student losses instead of five years, and that generated additional dollars for rural schools, some suburban districts, and middle-class schools across Ohio.”

Democrats argued that the freeze beginning next year on enrollment of the Medicaid expansion endangers the program, regardless of what President Trump and Congress do with the federal Affordable Care Act that’s now paying 95 percent of the bill.

Enrollment will continue as usual until July 1, 2018. Then the doors will close. Those already on the program at that time would continue to receive health care coverage.

Anyone who drops off the program because of a change in eligibility status could not later re-enroll.

About 725,000 Ohioans are on the Medicaid expansion rolls. Those earning less than 38 percent above the federal poverty level may be eligible.

Mr. Kasich has line-item veto authority and could strike the freeze language, but such a move might leave the state short of funding for new enrollments after July 1, 2018.

With exceptions for the mentally ill and those in substance abuse treatment, those on the expansion would have to work or be in school.

The plan also contains a requirement that the state seek permission from the federal government to require enrollees to pay a monthly premium, about $20, toward their Medicaid coverage.

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.

First Published June 22, 2017, 12:16 a.m.