VP Biden argued at the debate last week and other Democrats keep making this point, that the GOP House voted to cut $250M from the State Department's security budget. This is used to excuse the flop of ignoring pleas to provide more security in Libya.

Here is the size of the State Department budget:

FY1993 $6.3 billion.

FY2001 $7.4 billion.

FY2008 $17 billion.

FT2009 $21 billion.

FY2010 $23.8 billion.

FY2011 $24.3 billion.

FY2012 $29.? billion (exact number is still not available).

Let's say the GOP wanted to spend in the 2012 budget $250M less on State than in 2010. It isn't true. They perhaps offered to increase the budget by a smaller amount than Obama, but let's say they wanted an actual cut: The 2012 budget would still be billions larger than a mere two years earlier and would still be well above the levels had Bush-Obama followed Bill Clinton's approach to State. (In fact, if Bush-Obama followed Clinton's spending growth rates on Education, Health care, and on Social Programs, Bush too would have had surpluses and current deficits would be well bellow the current numbers).

All in all: The Security flop was a management issue; not budgetary. Even if the GOP wanted to spend in 2012 less than in 2011, spending was still way up from a mere few years earlier. Besides, the GOP never offered an actual spending cut to begin with.