The Senate tax- and fee-writing panel completed revenue estimates for the next two years that are much rosier than those the House relied upon in producing its $16 billion spending plan.

The Senate panel concluded that state government will take in $63 million more in the year that ends June 30 than the House had forecast.

Over the next two years, the Senate panel believes the state will get $66 million more in 2024 and $55 million more in 2025.

Although that’s pretty far from what the House Ways and Means Committee came up with, it’s much closer to what Gov. Chris Sununu forecast in his February budget proposal.

The Senate revenue numbers are $55 million higher than Sununu’s.

Nearly 65% of the gains — about $113 million — come from the state’s two main business taxes.

Senate Chairman Tim Lang, R-Sanbornton, said having two more months of revenue numbers to work with made it possible for senators to conclude that any looming recession is not going to cut off growth in those taxes.

“We see a slight slowdown, but not the kind of recessionary push downward that some had feared a few months ago,” Lang said.

Likewise, tax revenues from the hospitality industry for restaurant meals and hotel room rentals look bullish. The Senate expects that tax to bring in nearly $30 million more than the House estimated.

Lang’s panel made the biggest downward adjustment from the House revenue estimates in real estate, concluding that the transfer tax will bring in about $25 million less than the House predicted.

“There’s just no inventory out there. Home price sales are remaining solid, but there are so few transactions,” Lang said. “With higher interest rates, inflation and supply chain issues, developers are telling us they can’t put profitable packages together, so many plans will sit on drawing boards until the economic conditions get better.”

Not all-out war — yet

Senate President Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, delivered a sobering progress report to budget writers Friday on the state of Medicaid expansion.

Bradley said House Speaker Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, approached him two weeks ago to solicit feedback on whether he could support an eight-year extension of the program.

After consulting with Senate Deputy Democratic Leader Cindy Rosenwald, providers and other stakeholders, Bradley said it was “realistic,” and he was ready to sign on and accept less than the permanent expansion bill (SB 263) the Senate had passed, 24-0, last month.

Imagine his chagrin when all Republicans on the House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee voted Tuesday to endorse a two-year extension.

The full House debates the bill on Thursday after the panel deadlocked 10-10, with all Democrats wanting permanent Medicaid expansion.

“It’s not exactly consistent with the position that the speaker offered, which was eight years,” Bradley said. “We are kind of getting forced into a corner, and we are going to have to respond…. I would rather that we negotiate in good faith than anything else.”

Bradley said he was reviewing “multiple bills” to which the Senate could attach its original position on Medicaid in the coming weeks.

Timing is everything. The House panel acted the day after the Senate Judiciary Committee gave a thumbs-down to one of the House’s priority bills (HB 639) to legalize the sale of marijuana for adults.

Coincidence? Perhaps not.

Pot on front burner

Gov. Sununu’s startling about-face on legalizing marijuana doesn’t necessarily mean the GOP-led Legislature is going to fall into lockstep and support it.

Sununu’s model of state control of marijuana sales is the outline of a 2022 bill (HB 1598) then-state Rep. and now Sen. Daryl Abbas, R-Salem, sponsored that cleared the House and died in the Senate on a voice vote.

On paper, such legislation has potential in the state Senate, which last week voted 14-10 to kill the idea of legalizing marijuana through the free market.

Three Senate Republicans who opposed last week’s bill, Sens. Howard Pearl, R-Loudon, Abbas and Lang, all voted for the 2022 edition when they were in the House.

If those and other votes held, the cause goes from losing 14-10 to winning 13-11.

Here’s why it’s not a slam dunk, however, in the closely divided House.

The 2022 bill got heavily amended and barely passed, 169-156, with Republicans split, 92-82, for it and Democrats backing it only by a 77-73 margin.

The libertarian Republican base in House Majority Leader Jason Osborne‘s caucus is loath to let state government expand by getting into the weed-selling business.

Passing the bill will be a heavier lift for leadership in both parties than the alternative that went down in the Senate.

Senate helps House GOP

It wasn’t all bad news for Osborne in the Senate last week.

The GOP-led Senate mowed down many bills that had gotten through the closely divided House, some of which passed thanks to the solid turnout of House Democrats during sessions in mid-March.

Here are a few examples of measures the House passed that died in a sea of identical Senate 14-10 votes:

• Immigration checkpoints (HB 624): To require state and local law enforcement who know in advance about the location of federal immigration checkpoints to give notice to the public. The bill had passed the House, 220-152.

• Ban on no-knock warrants (HB 135) This would ban no-knock warrants unless a judge agreed to authorize one under extenuating circumstances. The house passed a key amendment, 229-84. The Senate actually voted to re-refer this one back to committee.

• Earlier parole eligibility (HB 588): This one had bipartisan House support to allow inmates to qualify for parole after serving 65% of their prison sentences.

Unused property proposed for charter schools

Along partisan lines, the Senate passed and sent to the House legislation to require public school districts to respond to a charter school program’s bid to buy unused property.

Lang championed this proposal (HB 536), which after 30 days of no contact would compel the Department of Education to appoint an independent appraiser to set a fair market value for the parcel. The charter school board would then get to decide if they want to buy it at that price.

Sen. Donovan Fenton, D-Keene, led his party’s opposition, likening it to someone being told by a homeowner association how much they can sell their home for and the buyer having the choice whether to purchase it.

“That is anti-capitalism and anti-local control,” Fenton said.

Possible pension battle

No decisions have been made yet, but signs are pointing to Senate Finance Chairman James Gray, R-Rochester, taking a hard line on some of the public pension sweeteners in the House-passed budget.

Last week, the Senate dumped on the table a House-passed bill (HB 555) to use some of future state budget surpluses to start paying off some of the $6 billion unfunded pension liability.

Gray also is not a fan of the House budget proposal to spend $50 million for each of the next 10 years to restore pension benefits to nearly 2,000 state workers that the Legislature cut back in 2011.

Telehealth prescriptions

Both parties and legislative chambers cooperated on one cause Thursday — legislation (HB 500) to permit doctors to prescribe opioids and other drugs via telehealth as long as it follows an in-person exam with the provider.

Senate Majority Whip Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead, said lawmakers needed to rush the bill onto Sununu’s desk for him to sign following the end of the federal health emergency for COVID-19 Thursday night.

This expansion of telehealth emerged during the pandemic, but the state law makes sure all insurers must reimburse for the same access going forward.

HHS ‘finds’ money

Medicaid Director Henry Lipman delivered some welcome news late last week as the Senate Finance Committee continued work on its version of a two-year state budget bill.

The state’s insurance actuaries informed him the forecast for future enrollment in Medicaid was lower than previously expected.

Lipman reduced the estimate for state spending for that health insurance benefit by nearly $40 million over the next two years.

Meanwhile, HHS officials brought in many requests for more spending.

Those included $15 million more for pharmacy premium payments for those eligible for Medicare and Medicaid and $11.5 million to support residential treatment provider rates.

Senate budget writers snipped the House-approved state aid to the University System of New Hampshire by $200,000 in 2024 and $6.2 million in 2025.

Johnson buys own show

Republican presidential contender Perry Johnson is spending some of his personal fortune on longer form TV ads that he said will give viewers an insider’s view into what campaigning in New Hampshire is really about.

The concept debuted last week on Newsmax, and Johnson said he’s bringing the ads to other media outlets.

“There are no people like the people here,” Johnson said after campaigning in New Hampshire for a few weeks. “It’s almost like a sport here, everybody is so involved. There is nothing else quite like it in this world.”

Parent rights battle awaits

It will come down to who shows up Thursday when House Speaker Packard and Majority Leader Osborne get a second turn at bat on parental-rights legislation (SB 272).

The first time through on his own bill (HB 10), Packard came up six votes short, 195-189.

The bill’s survival depends on how many of the dozen or so absent from that last vote are in their seats this week.

Heat turned up on Delaney

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, has ended her home convalescence from shingles and returned to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

But that didn’t end the stalemate over ex-Attorney General Mike Delaney’s nomination to a judgeship on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

With Feinstein in place, the panel approved three federal district court judges held up during her absence.

However, Delaney’s name did not come forward, and he remains in limbo amid opposition to his nomination from the left over his past defense of St. Paul’s School in Concord and other clients he has represented.

Senate dean gets award

The New England Board of Higher Education honors Sen. Lou D’Allesandro, D-Manchester, with an award Monday for his nearly two decades of service as an appointee to the board.

The 2020 award (delayed by the pandemic) will be presented to Dr. Robin DeRosa, director of Learning & Libraries along with Open Learning & Teaching Collaborative at Plymouth State University.

Quote of the week

“I want to get off on the right foot with this legislation.”

State Sen. Bill Gannon, R-Sandown, gave this self-deprecating opening to his remarks against legalizing marijuana.

He was on the Senate floor in person for the first time since recovering from a life-threatening infection that required the amputation of his right leg from the knee down.