For the Record

■ The frustration of big-spending liberal Democrats over Jimmy Carter’s fiscal policies erupted at the ADA convention last week. George McGovern’s diatribe against Carter got the biggest press, but the major threat to the President was uttered by ADA national director Leon Schull. He warned Carter that if he didn’t follow policies that the liberal movement deems best for the country, then “that liberal movement, with the ADA in the forefront, will go into the opposition [as it did during the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson].” . . . Carter is not being helped with Left Democrats by statements such as House Minority Leader John Rhodes’s that on balancing the budget, “the President sounds so Republican I’m overwhelmed.” … Or such as Democrat Thomas Foley’s (Wash.), that “it took Nixon to go to China, and it may take a Democrat to balance the budget.” . . . Recent CBS-New York Times polls show that whereas 32 per cent of the electorate considered Carter a liberal before the election, only 20 per cent do now. In addition, the poll shows that 48 per cent of those who voted for Ford in November are pleased with the way Carter is handling the Presidency. . . . The House and Senate leadership has dumped on Democratic Whip Sen. Alan Cranston for giving informal briefings to the press after the weekly Tuesday morning breakfast meetings the leadership has with Carter. It was Cranston who revealed the astonishment of the old-line liberals when Carter told them his first priority was balancing the budget.

■ Republican opposition to various Carter initiatives finally shaping up. Gerald Ford has now come out against the instant registration plan because you can’t do . it without “encouraging fraud.” Ronald Reagan is even more forcefully against it. “It’s a scheme to institutionalize one-party rule in the United States [and it would render] the Republican Party as dead as a dodo bird.” . . . In addition to which the people are against it according to the latest Gallup, which finds Americans opposed by 55 to 40 per cent. Democrats (who would gain by instant registration) oppose it 53 to 43 per cent, Republicans oppose it 67 to 30 per cent. . . . Sometime Energy Czar William Simon (in the Ford Administration) is very much against Carter’s energy program because it would, he says, “lead to a massive intrusion of government into the most critical sector of our economy” and eventually result “in a national energy police state.” . . . Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker calls the program “defeatist,” “essentially a taxing system.” . . . The reaction of radical Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) of the Black Caucus is that the Carter program does not go far enough. “What,” he asks, “about price control? What about nationalization?” (What about suicide?)

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■ The frustration of big-spending liberal Democrats over Jimmy Carter’s fiscal policies erupted at the ADA convention last week. George McGovern’s diatribe against Carter got the biggest press, but the major threat to the President was uttered by ADA national director Leon Schull. He warned Carter that if he didn’t follow policies that the liberal movement deems best for the country, then “that liberal movement, with the ADA in the forefront, will go into the opposition [as it did during the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson].” . . . Carter is not being helped with Left Democrats by statements such as House Minority Leader John Rhodes’s that on balancing the budget, “the President sounds so Republican I’m overwhelmed.” … Or such as Democrat Thomas Foley’s (Wash.), that “it took Nixon to go to China, and it may take a Democrat to balance the budget.” . . . Recent CBS-New York Times polls show that whereas 32 per cent of the electorate considered Carter a liberal before the election, only 20 per cent do now. In addition, the poll shows that 48 per cent of those who voted for Ford in November are pleased with the way Carter is handling the Presidency. . . . The House and Senate leadership has dumped on Democratic Whip Sen. Alan Cranston for giving informal briefings to the press after the weekly Tuesday morning breakfast meetings the leadership has with Carter. It was Cranston who revealed the astonishment of the old-line liberals when Carter told them his first priority was balancing the budget.

■ Republican opposition to various Carter initiatives finally shaping up. Gerald Ford has now come out against the instant registration plan because you can’t do . it without “encouraging fraud.” Ronald Reagan is even more forcefully against it. “It’s a scheme to institutionalize one-party rule in the United States [and it would render] the Republican Party as dead as a dodo bird.” . . . In addition to which the people are against it according to the latest Gallup, which finds Americans opposed by 55 to 40 per cent. Democrats (who would gain by instant registration) oppose it 53 to 43 per cent, Republicans oppose it 67 to 30 per cent. . . . Sometime Energy Czar William Simon (in the Ford Administration) is very much against Carter’s energy program because it would, he says, “lead to a massive intrusion of government into the most critical sector of our economy” and eventually result “in a national energy police state.” . . . Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker calls the program “defeatist,” “essentially a taxing system.” . . . The reaction of radical Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.) of the Black Caucus is that the Carter program does not go far enough. “What,” he asks, “about price control? What about nationalization?” (What about suicide?)