On infrastructure and immigration, half measures and vested interests dominate Hillary’s planning. Duh.

There’s news about what would-be President Hillary Clinton has planned for her first 100 days in office. Pending details, there are things to be cautiously optimistic about.

A Clinton aide indicated today that within her first 100 days in office, the likely Democratic nominee would send Congress a bill to spend more federal money on infrastructure. The price tag for that bill isn’t clear yet, but the aide suggested it will be higher than the $275 billion proposal Clinton has already put forth.

This is the unsexy portion of Clinton’s first-100-day agenda; the other, much politically sexier, bill she’s promised to put forth in that time frame would overhaul immigration policy. It would, among other things, allow millions of Americans who entered the country illegally to eventually earn citizenship here.

Or not. First off, the infrastructure idea needs a few more zeros at the end to be meaningful. We’ve known about this $275M figure since last year (so maybe it’s not really news, after all), and investing that amount on our infrastructure problems is like tackling world hunger by sending a box of Krispy Kremes to Sudan.

As for immigration reform, heck yes. This is a humane, productive, progressive approach to … wait, back up a second.

Increased spending on roads, bridges, ports, broadband cable and other infrastructure is the sort of policy that economists across the ideological spectrum tend to support, because those improvements pave the way for faster economic growth. There’s a general consensus that more immigration also promotes growth, by bringing more workers and consumers into the economy.

Oh, I see.

For those reasons, big business lobbying groups have made immigration and infrastructure key planks in their agendas in Washington.

Emphasis mine.

Meet the new boss…