Editorial: Democratic presidential candidates go big on spending

Quick: Of the presidents who have served over the past 50 years, who were the most fiscally restrained? Ronald Reagan? George H.W. Bush? Gerald Ford? No. Annual spending growth, in fact, was slowest under Bill Clinton. Democrats and others may remember that balancing the federal budget in the 1990s didn't stifle the economy; just the opposite. It helped fuel an era of prosperity.

But 19 Democratic presidential