Sen. Rand Paul Randal (Rand) Howard PaulSecond GOP senator to quarantine after exposure to coronavirus GOP senator to quarantine after coronavirus exposure The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by National Industries for the Blind - Trump seeks to flip 'Rage' narrative; Dems block COVID-19 bill MORE (R-Ky.) on Monday blasted the Air Force for spending $40,000 on an 11-foot model of the Fairchild Air Force Base.

The model was built to preserve the base’s history before some of its buildings get torn down, but Paul faulted it as a waste of taxpayer dollars.

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Paul in his latest “Waste Report” series called the expenditure “troubling,” and highlighted the irony of tearing down 16 underutilized buildings at the Washington state base only to spend $40,000 on a model of the base.

Paul, a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, said while the Air Force is seeking to do the right thing by reducing costs of operating the buildings, it has nevertheless invested resources in “dubious historic preservation activities.”

He also noted that the base is not being shut down and has limited public access, so the average person would not likely see the model anyway.

“This seems to be an effort to preserve for posterity the fact that this base, or at least the flight line, existed during the Cold War."

A solicitation for work on the model said its purpose was to comply with federal law requiring the Air Force to mitigate the impact that tearing down the buildings would have on history.

Paul, a fiscal conservative, has made cutting national debt one of his key campaign platforms.