On the eve of the Legislature’s veto override session, we now have the text of the bill extending the motel voucher program. It’s more or less what we thought it would be; its biggest shortcoming is the exclusion of the hundreds of Vermonters unsheltered this month. Ain’t a damn thing in it for them. And as we saw earlier, these may not be the neediest of our neediest, but they’ve got some pretty extreme needs and they’re going to suffer greatly as long as they’re unhoused.

The real sin of it all is that it wouldn’t cost much to include them, and we’ve got the money. Our fiscal experts continue to forecast revenue declines in the future, but for now we’re still collecting more than predicted every month. And the FY2024 budget puts $14 million in cold storage against future federal match opportunities. That seems like prudence except that we always find money for federal matches! Wait, let me put a little stank on that:

We. Always. Find. Money. For. Federal. Matches!

Missing out on federal largesse because we couldn’t come up with the scratch? It’s just not a thing that happens.

Banking funds against that highly unlikely occurrence while we’re sentencing hundreds to indefinite unsheltering? That’s a goddamn crime.

But this deal is almost certain to go through. It gives the House dissidents most of what they asked for, and they’re likely to give in and support the override of Gov. Phil Scott’s budget veto. Well, most of them will. The rest, in the world of legislative dealmaking, don’t matter. Nor do the unhoused who aren’t being helped.

So let’s take a closer look at the bill, including a few unexpected and unwelcome twists.

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