$300 million

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To deflect criticism about the fatal attack on the U.S. ambassador to Libya, the Obama campaign has accused GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan of proposing to cut $300 million from the budget for embassy security. As Vice President Joe Biden put it in his debate with Ryan, "the congressman here cut embassy security in his budget by $300 million below what we asked for." But there was no such reduction in Ryan's budget, which didn't specify a funding level for embassies. Instead, the figure was derived by the Obama campaign by assuming across-the-board cuts to all discretionary programs based on the overall spending caps the budget proposed. That's quite a stretch, especially considering how Republicans have sought to cut social programs in order to maintain spending on security-related needs.