Obama calls Pittsburgh model for rest of country

Barack Obama during a Pittsburgh campaign stop in April: Getty Images PhotoU.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said Thursday during a campaign stop in Pittsburgh that the city's renaissance after the steel industry's collapse could be a model for changes to America's economy, the Pittsburgh Business Times reports.

"This American city has found new opportunity through health care, and IT; through finance and universities," Obama said. "Now, we must connect that local innovation and ingenuity to a national strategy."

Obama was speaking at Carnegie Mellon University in front of a group of invited guests and business leaders as part of what he called an "economic competitiveness summit."

He discussed investing $150 billion in a green energy sector to create five million jobs, $10 billion in education, $60 billion in a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank, and making the Research and Development Tax Credit permanent, the Business Times reports.

RNC spokeswoman Blair Latoff responded to Obama's speech by arguing the presumptive Democratic nominee is proposing major tax increases to expand government.

"Whether it is smacking job-producing small businesses with a massive tax hike or voting to raise taxes on Pennsylvanians making as little as $32,000 a year, Barack Obama's ideas always end with hardworking people picking up the tab," she said in a statement.

A pair of Republican officials said Wednesday that Obama's proposals would hurt coal-heavy Pennsylvania.