Obama joins poverty summit

President Barack Obama took part in a three-day Summit on Poverty at Georgetown University this week, co-sponsored by Catholic and Evangelical groups. The president was part of a panel discussion with Arthur Brooks, president of the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, and Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, whose new book Our Kids: the American dream in crisis analyses the spread of poverty and diminishing social capital.

“I think that we are at a moment – in part because of what’s happened in Baltimore and Ferguson and other places, but in part because of a growing awareness of inequality in our society – where it may be possible not only to refocus attention on the issue of poverty, but also to bridge some of the gaps that have existed and the ideological divides that have prevented us from making progress,” Mr Obama told the summit attendees, who were joined for this session by 100 Georgetown students and guests.

Mr Obama expressed concern that the political discussion about poverty often involved “straw men” erected for purposes of political posturing. He admitted to frustration at his inability to adjust the tax code that currently taxes hedge-fund manager salaries as capital gains, which carries a 15 per cent tax rate, rather than as income. The three-day summit was spearheaded by John Carr, who worked at the US bishops’ conference on social-justice issues for 25 years before starting the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown.