Can faith groups change the political conversation around poverty?

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the racial segregation that once marked American society has been replaced by "class segregation," a division that members of both parties need to address urgently.

Speaking on a panel at Georgetown University, Obama said Americans are "at a moment ... where it may be possible not only to refocus attention on the issue of poverty, but also maybe to bridge some of the gaps that have existed and the ideological divides that have prevented us from making progress."

"The stereotype is that you've got folks on the left who just want to pour more money into social programs, and don't care anything about culture or parenting or family structures," Obama said, speaking on stage with Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam, American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks and the discussion's moderator, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne. "And then you've got coldhearted, free market, capitalist types who are reading Ayn Rand and think everybody are moochers. And I think the truth is more complicated."

The friendly discussion - in which the participants joked about both popular liberal and conservative stereotypes, including how Fox News portrays the president and the poor - covered issues ranging from fiscal policy to faith. It was part of a three-day conference that explored whether the world could reduce poverty by elevating it to a top moral issue, delving into the details on policies concerning predatory lending, taxes and wages.

John Carr, a former top official with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and one of the conveners of this conference, said he invited Obama in the hopes that the former community organizer will embrace poverty as "his cause" after he leaves office.

Putnam - who has published the book "Our Kids," about American children living in poverty - argued that Americans now face "a serious crisis in which, increasingly, the most important decision that anybody makes is choosing their parents ... Those kids' fate is being determined by things that they had no control over. And that's fundamentally unfair."

Brooks emphasized that many conservatives are just as committed to addressing economic inequality as their liberal counterparts, and the issue has to be viewed through a moral lens.

"Capitalism is nothing more than a system, and it must be predicated on right morals," he said, adding that the poor are "not liabilities to manage. They're assets to develop because every one of us made in God's image is an asset to develop."

Obama made a pointed critique, echoed by Putnam, about the withdrawing from the commons the U.S. has witnessed in recent years, as wealthier citizens have enrolled their children in private schools and extracurricular activities.

"Instead of softening the edges of the market, we're turbocharging it," Obama said. "What used to be racial segregation now mirrors itself in class segregation and this great sorting that's taking place. Now, that creates its own politics. Right? I mean, there's some communities where I don't know - not only do I not know poor people, I don't even know people who have trouble paying the bills at the end of the month. I just don't know those people."

Referring to the rosy scenario Putnam painted of U.S. society a generation ago, when people of different classes mixed easily in playgrounds, schools and other community gathering spots. "Even back in Bob's day that was happening, it was happening to black people."

Still, Dionne asked Obama to respond to critics who say he tells young black Americans to examine how their own actions might have contributed to their disadvantaged status, in ways he wouldn't to white youth.

The president said he made "no apologies" for it.

"And the reason is, is because I am a black man who grew up without a father and I know the cost that I paid for that," he said. "And I also know that I have the capacity to break that cycle, and as a consequence, I think my daughters are better off."

"I think it would be powerful for our faith-based organizations to speak out on this in a more forceful fashion," Obama said. "I think there is more power to be had there, a more transformative voice that's available around these issues."

John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron, said the big faith groups to whom Obama was speaking - Catholics and evangelicals, who together make up about half the U.S. population - are more aligned than they used to be on how to address poverty. However, he said the primary problem isn't a disagreement about policy, it's the U.S. political climate.

"I can imagine Catholics, evangelicals, secular leaders can agree more than they used to, but can they bring their followers along? These are well-meaning people," he said of the crowd at Georgetown, "but the polarization of the moment presents a challenge to them."

Despite the serious nature of the discussion, the event had its lighter moments as well. At one point Obama joked that Fox News had successfully stigmatized poor people as moochers who simply wanted"Obamaphone" handouts from the federal government.

"They will find folks who make me mad. I don't know where they find them," he said, prompting laughter. "They're like, I don't want to work, I just want a free Obamaphone, or whatever. And that becomes an entire narrative - right? - that gets worked up. "

"Can you believe he said 'Obamaphone?" Brooks asked the audience a few moments later. "And he's against the Obamaphone. So let's stipulate to that. Just because they took away his phone."

• Washington Post staff writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey contributed to this report.