Gavin Newsom just made California the first state to hand out free diapers to new parents, and somehow managed to turn a box of Huggies into a fiscal scandal involving his wife, a nonprofit executive making over $200,000, and math that would get you laughed out of a seventh-grade classroom. The program is called "Golden State Start," which is exactly the kind of name a focus group comes up with right before the indictments.
Because of course Gavin Newsom found a way to make free diapers controversial. That takes a special kind of talent. The man could set a glass of water on fire.
Here's what Governor Hair Gel announced on social media: "California just became the FIRST state in America to provide FREE DIAPERS to all new parents." He was practically doing a victory lap. Four hundred diapers per baby, distributed through approximately 400 of the state's 500 hospitals. Sounds generous. Sounds compassionate. Sounds like it costs $12.4 million a year.
Now let's do the math that Newsom apparently skipped. Brittany Hughes of the Media Research Center broke it down on social media: "400 diapers will last a family with a newborn approximately five weeks. The program will cost the state approx. $12.4 million this year alone." Five weeks. That's it. Your tax dollars buy five weeks of diapers, and then you're back at Costco like the rest of us.
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But here's where it gets fun. The state is paying roughly 50 cents per diaper through this program. You know what a diaper costs at retail? Between 12 and 15 cents. Buy 400 of them in bulk and you're looking at under $60. The state of California is spending $200 for the same stack. That's not a government program — that's a markup that would make a concert beer vendor blush.
So where's all that extra money going? Glad you asked. The program is administered by Baby2Baby, a nonprofit whose co-CEO, Norah Weinstein, pulled in over $200,000 in salary in 2024, according to LifeZette. And here's the part that makes it all smell like Sacramento on a hot day — Baby2Baby has deep ties to Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the governor's wife, through her organization California Partners Project.
Entrepreneur Peter Borkowski, who previously ran an organic baby formula business, flagged the connection on social media. "I was in the organic baby formula business... I know this baby2baby nonprofit," Borkowski wrote, raising questions about the cozy relationship between the governor's office and the organization now sitting on a $12.4 million state contract.
Let's be clear about what's happening here. California is broke. The state has been running deficits that would make a drunken sailor nervous. And Gavin Newsom's big play is to overpay for diapers by roughly 300 percent and funnel the contract through an organization linked to his wife. That's not governance. That's a grift with a press release.
The whole thing is structured so perfectly that you'd think someone planned it — announce a feel-good freebie, make sure nobody reads the fine print, and hope the media runs with the headline instead of the spreadsheet. And for a while, it worked. Newsom got his social media moment. The word "FREE" did the heavy lifting.
But we can read, Gavin. And we can do arithmetic. When you're paying four times the market rate for diapers and the money trail leads back to your wife's nonprofit circle, that's not compassion. That's California.
Five weeks of diapers. Twelve point four million dollars. And a nonprofit executive making more than most of the parents this program claims to help. Welcome to the Golden State, where even the baby supplies come with a surcharge and a scandal.