Newsom's $20 million diaper program draws fire over inflated costs and nonprofit ties

Gavin Newsom announced a plan to hand out free diapers to every baby born in California's participating hospitals, and the math behind the price tag is drawing sharp criticism from business owners and a Republican gubernatorial candidate alike.

The program, called Golden State Start, is a partnership between the state and the nonprofit Baby2Baby. It promises 400 diapers for every newborn delivered at participating hospitals, funded by $7.4 million from California's 2025, 2026 budget, with an additional $12.5 million sought for the following year. Newsom touted it as a "first-in-the-nation program," claiming the state would be "leveraging the bulk purchasing power of the state" to "distribute high-quality, mass-produced diapers directly to families."

But critics say the numbers tell a very different story, one of a government paying several times the retail price for a product any parent can buy at a warehouse store.

The cost breakdown that launched the backlash

Peter Basios, founder of an organic baby formula company, laid out the arithmetic on X in a post that quickly gained traction. As the New York Post reported, Basios calculated the per-diaper cost by dividing the program's roughly $20 million budget by the number of diapers it would distribute:

"100,000 babies × 400 diapers = 40 million diapers. $20,000,000 ÷ 40,000,000 = $0.50 per diaper. Now walk into any Costco in California and you can buy the same quality diapers for.12 to.15 cents each!"

That gap, 50 cents per diaper versus 12 to 15 cents at Costco, means the state would be paying roughly eight to ten times what a regular family pays buying in bulk, Basios argued. At retail bulk prices, 400 diapers would run a family between $48 and $60. Under Newsom's program, the state would spend $200 per baby for the same product.

Basios called the initiative "peak government stupidity" and accused Newsom of "funding another bloated nonprofit-government grift."

A gubernatorial challenger weighs in

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton picked up the thread, framing the program as a symptom of Sacramento's chronic inability to spend taxpayer money efficiently. Hilton said Newsom's diaper program is "three times more expensive" than what parents could buy at a store on their own. His language on X was blunt:

"Why is it three times more expensive for Gavin Newsom to send diapers to 100,000 babies than just leaving the money in the bank accounts of the parents in the first place? Because it's going to some total bulls*** nonprofit which the cronies of his are going to make money."

Hilton's proposed alternative: cut taxes so parents can afford to buy diapers themselves, rather than routing money through what he called "this ridiculous bureaucratic scheme." It is the kind of straightforward argument that resonates with Californians already squeezed by the state's high cost of living.

Hilton has made fiscal accountability a running theme in his campaign. He recently vowed to end California taxpayer-funded security for Kamala Harris's book tour if elected governor, signaling a willingness to challenge the cozy arrangements between Sacramento's political class and the spending apparatus it controls.

The nonprofit connection raising eyebrows

The cost question alone would be enough to raise flags. But the identity of the nonprofit partner adds another layer of scrutiny. Breitbart reported that Baby2Baby co-CEO Norah Weinstein sits on the board of the California Partners Project, an organization co-founded by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the governor's wife. The California Partners Project helped facilitate the partnership between Baby2Baby and the state.

That chain of relationships, from the governor's office, through his wife's nonprofit, to the organization receiving the contract, is precisely the kind of arrangement that invites questions about whether taxpayer dollars are being steered toward politically connected entities rather than toward the best deal for families.

Hilton told the California Post that rather than "taking our money, putting into some scheme that benefits their friends and cronies," the state should "let us just keep more of our money in the first place so we can decide how to spend our money."

The pattern is familiar to anyone watching how prominent Democratic figures handle large sums of money. The details differ, but the underlying dynamic, public dollars flowing through channels that benefit insiders, keeps showing up.

Newsom's office stays silent

The New York Post reported that it reached out to Newsom's office for comment and had not heard back. That silence is notable. When a governor launches what he calls a first-in-the-nation initiative, you would expect his communications team to be eager to defend it, especially when the core criticism is a simple math problem anyone with a calculator can check.

The administration framed the program as part of a broader strategy to tackle affordability in California. But the affordability pitch rings hollow when the state is apparently paying a premium of several hundred percent over retail for a basic consumer good. Families struggling with California's cost of living do not need the government to buy them diapers at a markup. They need a government that stops making everything more expensive.

This is hardly the first time Newsom has faced questions about his priorities and credibility. He recently took a veiled shot at Kamala Harris over a memoir dispute, revealing the kind of internal friction that suggests Sacramento's political class is more focused on personal brand management than governing.

What the numbers actually mean for taxpayers

Set aside the nonprofit ties for a moment and look purely at the fiscal picture. The program's first-year allocation is $7.4 million. The proposed second-year allocation is $12.5 million. That is nearly $20 million in state funds for a diaper distribution program.

Basios argued that the state could have achieved the same result, getting diapers to every low-income new mother, by handing "every low-income new mom $100 cash and told her to go to Costco." At bulk retail prices, $100 would cover 400 diapers with money left over. Instead, California chose to route the funds through a government-nonprofit partnership at a cost of roughly $200 per baby.

The difference between those two approaches is not just a rounding error. It represents the gap between a government that trusts families to make their own purchasing decisions and one that insists on controlling the process, and paying a premium for the privilege.

Accountability failures at the state level are not unique to California, of course. Other Democratic governors have faced scrutiny for decisions that prioritized political optics over sound policy. But California, with its massive budget and one-party governance, offers particularly fertile ground for the kind of spending that benefits connected insiders while delivering questionable value to the public.

Open questions that deserve answers

Several basic questions remain unanswered. Which hospitals are participating, and how many? What is the full projected cost over the program's lifetime? How was Baby2Baby selected as the nonprofit partner, and was the arrangement subject to competitive bidding? Did anyone in the governor's office flag the connection between Baby2Baby's leadership and the California Partners Project before the deal was finalized?

These are not gotcha questions. They are the minimum due diligence that any taxpayer-funded program should be able to withstand. If the program is as beneficial as Newsom claims, his office should welcome the scrutiny rather than ducking reporters' calls.

Newsom has built his political brand on big announcements and first-in-the-nation claims. But a program's novelty does not make it wise. And when the per-unit cost is multiple times what any parent pays at a warehouse store, the announcement starts to look less like innovation and more like a press release designed to generate headlines while the money flows quietly to familiar hands.

California's taxpayers deserve better than a government that pays 50 cents for what costs 15, and then calls it a bargain.