I try to limit my use of bad language, I really do. But there are times, and this is one of them.

Gov. Phil Scott, alleged “nice guy” and “moderate” who has insisted that protecting Vermont’s most vulnerable is a pillar of administration policy, just went and did what we expected him to do all along: He vetoed H.91, the Legislature’s carefully crafted replacement for the motel voucher system Scott has been complaining about for years.

Our mainstream media outlets have been saying for weeks that Scott’s stance on H.91 was unclear. In doing so, they ignored the obvious signal from Human Services Secretary Jenney Samuelson that a veto was in the cards from jump street. Almost a month ago, Samuelson delivered a memo to legislative leaders expressing serious concerns about H.91. That should have been all the foreshadowing needed to conclude that we were inevitably going to end up where we are today, with Scott killing a good-faith effort by the Legislature to do the thing he and his administration should have done long ago: Propose a voucher replacement plan of his own.

I should admit that my headline is a bit over the top. It’s not that the governor doesn’t care at all about the homeless. It’s just that he cares about other stuff more — again, in spite of his perpetual insistence that caring for the most vulnerable was one of the three guiding principles of his governorship.

What does he care about more? Well, cost, obviously. He doesn’t want to spend a dime more than we’re paying now. Which would be fine except we’re in a housing crisis that has forced many Vermonters out of their domiciles. The system costs more than Scott would like because there are so many people experiencing homelessness. And there’s not nearly enough shelter space.

Speaking of which, Scott’s veto message included the following bullshit: “…we should focus on real solutions like building additional shelter capacity and requirements to engage in work, training, and treatment for those who need it.”

Okay, well, Scott has yet to offer a proposal to build additional shelter capacity. He’s put up a handful of Potemkin villages that provided shelter for a few — at much greater cost than the motel voucher system. He has never, ever, ever, not even once, proposed anything beyond a token gesture for the unsheltered. Because building enough shelter capacity for the current need would be frightfully expensive, and Scott won’t stand for that.

He will stand for people sleeping under bridges and in tents by the river.

As for that second thing about requiring people to “engage in work, training and treatment,” this is a thinly-veiled nod to the lie Republicans like to tell — that the poor are lazy and unworthy of our support. They’re peddling this same line in Congress to try to make their proposed cuts to Medicaid and Medicare seem less obscene. They’ve been using this argument at least since the 1940s.

Thing is, it’s largely a myth. I’m sure there are people who lie on their couches all day eating bonbons or sit in their bedroom playing computer games or sleep around so they can pop out babies to increase their take from human services programs. But it’s a vanishingly small number.

Hey, governor, maybe you didn’t know, but quite a few unsheltered people already have jobs. But far too many jobs don’t pay well enough to meet the punishing demands of our overheated housing market. There are people with full-time jobs who can’t afford basic housing, or can’t find it. Engaging in work or training isn’t going to help them, unless you want to mandate that employers pay a living wag— oh, never mind, we can’t have that. That would be too burdensome on employers. Better to let the burden fall on the shoulders of our most vulnerable. After all, they’re used to being kicked around by life. They can take it, I’m sure.

Congratulations again to the voters of Vermont, including many Democrats, who keep electing this guy. This is what we get with Phil Scott as governor, and it’s not going to change until he’s safely out of office.

Which I guess means that the majority of voters don’t really give a fuck about the homeless either. Sad but true.

For the record, this is apparently the 56th veto of Scott’s governorship. (My count of veto messages as archived by the Secretary of State.) The previous record-holder was Howard Dean with 21 — and he was in office for more than 11 years to Scott’s 8 1/2.

Phil Scott has more than doubled Dean’s total, and is coming close to tripling it. When he took office, there had been a total of 144 gubernatorial vetoes. Scott’s rejection of H.91 will bring that total to a nice round 200. Phil Scott alone is responsible for more than one-quarter of all the vetoes in Vermont’s history as a state.

Strange thing for a “nice guy” to do, don’t you think?