Pete Buttigieg doesn’t think you can have women’s rights without big government

The plan is not entirely dissimilar from Beto O’Rourke‘s or California Sen. Kamala Harris‘s. Democratic politicians love to talk about closing the pay gap or bolstering a woman’s “right” to abortion, and Buttigieg hopes to use the talking points to capture more of the female vote.

For Democratic candidates, though, “women’s rights” aren’t about equal opportunity. They’re about equal outcome, and the term has become a synonym for government overreach and misuse.

Buttigieg’s agenda, which he released this week, includes passing the superfluous Equal Rights Amendment, reinstating the equally superfluous Obama-era White House Council on Women and Girls, and implementing paid family leave laws that, in practice, harm the women they aim to help.

Then Buttigieg has a plan to address “reproductive rights,” and it includes abolishing the Hyde Amendment, which limits federal funding of abortion. Buttigieg recently told Cosmopolitan that abortion access is becoming a crisis, and “what we see right now is an all-out assault on women’s reproductive freedom in this country.” And he’s not unlike his peers in treating the issue as a national emergency.

Of course, he also rues the gender pay gap, which would shrink to almost nothing if analysts could measure it correctly without turning it into a political tool.

With so much taxpayerfunded excess, it’s no surprise that Buttigieg’s plan also throws in putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill and establishing a Smithsonian Women’s History Museum, which could both be pretty good ideas if they weren’t topping off a series of pandering campaign promises.

That doesn’t mean Buttigieg’s plan is all bad. It also addresses closing the boyfriend loophole, through which people with a history of domestic violence are able to purchase guns. There are many women-specific issues, such as this one, that are begging to be addressed in Washington. It’s just too bad that Democrats are more obsessed with boosting abortion legislation and shelling millions of dollars into unnecessary initiatives than focusing on issues that the government really should address.

The least worrisome (but perhaps most annoying) part of Buttigieg’s plan is his gender-quota virtue signaling. In a video announcement for the plan, Buttigieg proclaims, “My Cabinet will be at least 50% women, and so will my judicial appointments.” Lawmakers ought to nominate women to Cabinet positions, but that doesn’t mean they should be so committed to their quotas that they find the wrong woman for the job (see: President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state).

This announcement isn’t, for example, California Rep. Eric Swalwell levels of pandering, but it seems unnecessary and disingenuous. At least it won’t cost taxpayers anything, such as Buttigieg’s $50 billion to “grow women’s businesses.”

When you look at his platform, it’s clear that Buttigieg doesn’t think you can have women’s rights without big government. When it comes to the rest of his party, though, Buttigieg blends right in.