President Obama just presented his jobs plan - a $447 billion plan - to put millions of American back to work - and he dared the Republicans to oppose it.

Every proposal I've laid out tonight is the kind that's been supported by Democrats and Republicans in the past. Every proposal I've laid out tonight will be paid for. And every proposal is designed to meet the urgent needs of our people and our communities.

The President's speech couldn't have come any sooner - because a year of spending cuts brought to us by the Republican Party - in many cases through hostage-taking scenarios - are killing our economy.

And now is the time to ditch austerity - and go after ACTUAL job creation - and to fight for it.

President Obama gets it - and so does the United Nations.

This week - the UN issued a new report pleading with Europe, Japan and the United States to ditch the austerity agendas - warning that continuing down the road of spending CUTS will push the global economy to the brink of disaster.

Instead of doing that - the United Nations urged governments to adopt policies that increase workers wages - as in - put more money in the pockets of people who will spend it and get the economy working again.

As the report read:

Given the lack of growth in employment and wages in Europe, Japan and the United States, their policies should aim at continued stimulation of their economies instead of trying to ‘regain the confidence of the financial markets’ by prematurely cutting government spending.

To translate that into normal English - stop trying to please the banksters - start trying to help workers.

What the UN saw is what’s going on in Europe.

Near the end of last year - the United Kingdom passed an austerity plan complete with massive spending cuts and government worker layoffs… what happened?.

Money got sucked out of working peoples' pockets - their economy hit the wall - growing a mere .2% - .2% - over the last three quarters of a year - practically no growth whatsoever.

Not to mention the social unrest and rioting that came with the government layoffs and the cuts to social programs that set London ablaze for a week last month.

Greece also passed an austerity plan with deep spending cuts and public worker layoffs - and they’re no closer to being out of the woods yet.

Now - not only are they still on the verge of defaulting on their debts - but they also have a shrinking economy to deal with - their GDP contracted by a whopping 7.3% last quarter.

Never in the history of the world has a nation cut its way to prosperity - especially during a recession.

And the lessons aren't just overseas - they're right here in the United States too.

As the Center for American Progress has pointed out - individual states have reacted differently to the recession - with 24 states choosing to CUT spending - and 25 states choosing to INCREASE spending.

And guess what happened?

It's pretty straightforward. It's actually quite amazing. The states that CUT spending saw their economies shrink on average by nearly 3%.

They also saw on average a one-percentage-point increase in their unemployment rate.

So in 24 mostly-Republican states, spending cuts led to higher unemployment - and lower economic output.

On the other hand - states that INCREASED spending grew their economies and lowered unemployment.

On average - states that increased spending saw a half-point increase in economic growth and a .2% drop in their unemployment rate.

As in - more jobs were created in the mostly-Democratic states - and their economies performed better.

But none of this mattered to Republicans in Congress who demanded deep spending cuts - and even held our economy hostage until they got what they wanted in the debt-limit deal last month.

A debt-limit deal that's chock full of the very same austerity measures that the U.N. today warned us about.

And what happened after Congress passed the debt-limit deal?

The market went into a tailspin - our credit got downgraded - and our economic outlook turned sour.

Which is exactly what the Republicans wanted - Speaker of the House John Boehner bragged that he got 98% of what he wanted in the deal...thanks a lot, right?

It's simple - austerity measures are poison pills for an economy that's in a crisis.

And massive tax cuts for rich people - the so-called "Job Creators" - they don't help either.

It's voodoo economics that Republicans are pushing to not only help their big corporate donors get more and more money - but also to put the economy in the tank so that President Obama looks bad - just in time for the 2012 elections.

And the American people aren't buying it anymore - take a look at what this constituent of Paul Ryan's had to say at a townhall event earlier this week:

I'm out here today because Paul Ryan doesn't represent the citizens of first district, he represents hedge fund managers and lobbyists. He doesn't care about the people, he doesn't care about jobs. Demand is the only thing that creates jobs, not rich people, not tax cuts but demand, and working people don't have the money in their pockets to create demand right now. And that's the problem with that country and Paul Ryan is blind to that.

I think President Obama listened to that guy.

Tonight's speech was the first step toward re-booting his Presidency - and re-booting this economy - but he has to keep up the fight - and he has to keep hitting Republicans like Eric Cantor over the head again and again and again - metaphorically, of course - until they ditch their agenda to crash the economy - and they have no choice but to jump on board and help fix the economy.

To hell with the Republicans' billionaire corporate donors - it's time to give this economy back to working people.

And for the first time in a while - I'm confident that President Obama knows what's at stake - and I think he's finally ready to be a transformative president like Franklin Roosevelt - and not a one-term president like Jimmy Carter.

That's The Big Picture.