By Spencer Hunt and Leo Shane III
Enquirer Columbus Bureau

COLUMBUS - Senate Republicans who must either cut spending or raise taxes to balance the state budget left the statehouse Tuesday night without a plan.

The Senate Finance Committee was expected to vote on a bill that would eliminate a $720 million budget deficit. But private talks meant to persuade conservative lawmakers to support a tax increase stretched on for hours and ultimately fell apart.

Even a personal plea from Gov. Bob Taft, who spent about 15 minutes behind closed doors with senators, failed to break the logjam. Taft wants lawmakers to either raise cigarette and alcohol taxes or approve a temporary increase in the sales tax to keep state finances in the black.

When it appeared senators would pass a bill that would do neither, Taft asked Senate President Doug White, R-Manchester, for more time to change their minds. White agreed.

Orest Holubec, Taft's spokesman, said the governor would call individual lawmakers Tuesday night and this morning. "We're going to continue to push hard," he said.

Senate Republican leaders, several of whom were dealing with a fierce anti-tax lobbying effort in their districts, did not hold out much hope for the governor.

"Today was a bad day," said Sen. Jay Hottinger, R-Newark, the No. 3 GOP leader in the Senate. "Nothing says it's going to be any prettier or easier (today)."

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Bill Harris, R-Ashland, said he still expects to advance a bill that would pass the full Senate today.

Earlier Tuesday, senators appeared ready to pass a proposal similar to a $566 million plan House Republicans approved last week. That plan did not raise taxes and also tried to block the governor from cutting funds to schools and universities.

Taft has threatened for weeks to cut school and higher education funding by 2.5 percent if lawmakers don't raise taxes. Greater Cincinnati schools and colleges would lose a total $20.8 million by June 30, according to statistics released by the governor's office.

Unlike the House, the Senate plan would have allowed the governor to cut school funding. Harris hinted that plan could still pass today if lawmakers don't have a change of heart.

"The president of the Senate feels, and I support that feeling, that we continue to talk so that everyone understands the full ramifications of the bill that we will bring," Harris said.

Harris said he continues to support a two-year, 1-cent increase in the state sales tax as a solution to Ohio's short-term and long-term budget crises.

Ohio's current budget, which expires June 30, has been left crippled by the national recession. The $720 million deficit that must be resolved now feeds into an even bigger $4 billion deficit over the next two years.

A sales tax increase from 5 percent to 6 percent could raise $2.5 billion over the next two years. It would also help eliminate the short-term deficit if passed within the next two weeks.

Rank-and-file GOP lawmakers have so far shrugged off the political pressure to raise taxes on anything.

On Tuesday, an anti-tax lobbying group, the OhioTaxpayers Association, turned up the heat on the Senate's more moderate leaders.

The group sent recorded phone messages to 30,000 Republican voting families in White, Harris and Hottinger's home districts.

The message asked listeners to call their senators to complain or visit the institute's Web site.

Scott Pullins of the taxpayers group said the goal of the campaign was to make sure voters hold their elected officials accountable - and keep them from passing a tobacco tax increase or temporary sales tax increase.

E-mail shunt@enquirer.com