A decisive shift toward alternative social welfare strategies - such as comprehensive national health insurance or universal income maintenance - can be accomplished only through a vast reprogramming of funds from within the social welfare sector of the budget itself. However, the major impediment to such a restructuring lies in the political and structural opposition of assorted powerful lobbies and congressmen's "pork barrel" interests that maintain present programs that are ineffective or often subsidize the "haves" under the guise of meeting the needs of the poor. (EH)