Democrats, who won the midterm elections promising to relieve financial pressures on middle- class families while restoring fiscal discipline to Washington, now face a crunch over paying for their promises.

House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi and her fellow congressional Democrats have yet to spell out how they'd pay for their middle- class agenda, which includes promises on college aid, retirement- savings incentives and health-care affordability.

Budget experts say that unless Democrats are willing and able to cut existing federal programs, raise taxes or both to comply with their pledge to avoid widening the federal deficit, some of their initiatives will be scaled back or deferred....

"If there's easy money to be had out there, it would have already been had by now," said Maya MacGuineas, head of the Washington-based Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "Nobody is walking away from $300 billion." ...

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