On Monday, Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth sounded off about the Ivey administration's decision to borrow $730 million against future tax receipts to finance the West Alabama Highway project, also known as the West Alabama Corridor.
In an interview on FM Talk 106.5's "The Jeff Poor Show," Ainsworth labeled the project as "the biggest abuse of taxpayer funding in Alabama's history." Last week, the lieutenant governor said that Alabama Department of Transportation director John Cooper "should be embarrassed" for not securing any federal funding for the project.
"If you look at the infrastructure side ... I called it the biggest abuse of taxpayer funding in Alabama's history, and I stand by that."
"[Y]ou can talk about whether or not the West Alabama Corridor project needs to happen, but in my opinion, it needs to happen like every other project we do in our state, and that's my frustration, the fact that we are using 100% of Alabama taxpayer dollars, where normally we would have 20% of Alabama dollars and 80% from the federal government."
Ainsworth said he was pushing back against the funding because it is "negligent" and "hurts our state," noting that the amount would hurt the funding for the rest of the state's infrastructure. He said that the project itself was "fine," but his issue was the funding.
RELATED: Ainsworth continues verbal assault against West Alabama Corridor
"It's going to tie [future Gov. Tommy Tuberville's] hands," he added. "He's not going to have as much flexibility because he's going to have to make these bond payments."
Ainsworth said the $730 million would end up closer to the $1.3- $ 1.5 billion range.
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