Politico and others have examined Buttigieg and his supposedly ‘moderate’ message. Rhetoric aside, the substance of Buttigieg’s plans seem anything but moderate.

In recent weeks, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has enjoyed a boomlet in polls for the Democratic presidential nomination, helped in no small part by fawning press coverage. Politico and others have examined the candidate and his supposedly “moderate” message.

Rhetoric aside, however, the substance of Buttigieg’s policy plans seem anything but moderate. On multiple issues, Pete has embraced positions far to the left of anything Hillary Clinton dared endorse in her campaign four years ago, and which seem “moderate” only in comparison to the socialist delusions of candidates like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

1. Big Tax Increases on the Middle Class

As I first noted last month, Buttigieg has supported at least one, and quite possibly several, tax increases on the middle class. His retirement security plan included one explicit tax increase on working families, endorsing legislation that would raise payroll taxes as part of a new regime of paid family leave.

The retirement white paper, released just before Thanksgiving, implicitly endorsed a second tax increase on the middle class as well. The plan proposed a new entitlement program, Long-Term Care for America, designed to replace the CLASS Act included in Obamacare, but which Congress repealed prior to its implementation due to solvency concerns. Buttigieg’s paper didn’t say how it would pay for the new spending created by the program, but other studies cited by the campaign did: They proposed another increase in the payroll tax, which would also fall on middle-class families.

I wrote about Buttigieg’s tax plans in the Wall Street Journal last month. Yet following that article, no one from the Buttigieg campaign bothered to refute, smack down, or otherwise correct my assertion that their candidate wants to tax middle-class families.

The deafening silence from the Buttigieg campaign regarding my op-ed suggests the candidate does indeed want to raise taxes on the middle class—he just hopes that no one will notice that fact. It seems like an ironic bit of silence, given that Buttigieg attacked Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) for being “extremely evasive” on the issue of middle-class tax increases last fall.

2. ‘Insurance, Whether You Want It or Not’

Buttigieg likes to advertise his health care plan as “Medicare for All Who Want It,” but as several stories over the holiday revealed, it comes with an intrusive twist. While his plan says that “individuals could opt out of public coverage,” they could do so only “if they choose to enroll in another insurance plan.”

In other words, Buttigieg would compel people to buy insurance—whether they want to or not, enforcing this revived individual mandate through the tax code. On April 15, individuals who didn’t enroll in health insurance the previous year would get a bill for coverage, which could total $5,000 or more, whether they wanted that coverage or not, and whether they knew they had that coverage or not.

It’s far from clear that this new “mandate on steroids” would pass constitutional muster. In 2012, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Roberts blessed Obamacare’s mandate as a tax in part because “for most Americans the amount due will be far less than the price of insurance…It may often be a reasonable financial decision to make the payment rather than purchase insurance.”

Roberts justified Obamacare’s mandate as a tax because it gave the public a genuine choice: Buy insurance, or pay the IRS a tax. Buttigieg’s plan would give the public a Hobson’s choice: Buy insurance, or have insurance bought for you. It represents a significant increase in federal powers—one courts could (and should) strike down.

3. ‘Glide Path’ to Socialized Medicine

Notwithstanding his use of a strengthened individual mandate, Buttigieg ultimately wants to end up with a single-payer system of socialized medicine. He has made no bones about his objective, claiming that his health-care plan would provide a “glide path” to socialism.

As with most of the 2020 Democratic candidates who haven’t endorsed single payer explicitly, Buttigieg’s plan contains several characteristics designed to promote the growth of government-run health care. For instance, he would automatically enroll millions of individuals into the government-run health plan. (He claims Americans could opt out of the government plan, but if he wants the system to end in single payer, how easy would he make it for them to do so?) And he has proposed capping the amount that both private and public insurers can pay physicians and hospitals for health treatments, another way to funnel Americans into the government-run system.

Buttigieg’s plan would create the architecture to create a government-run system of socialized medicine. He just would build that edifice slightly more slowly than Sanders would. It represents but one of the big-government dreams of a candidate who, despite soothing rhetoric, has little in the way of policies to justify the term “moderate.”