California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom is starting a new program this summer for mothers with newborns dubbed “Golden State Start.” The program gives moms with new babies 400 diapers when they are discharged from the hospital.

Taking away a small financial burden for families sounds like a nice gesture. As a mother myself, 400 diapers would last several months and save me between $150 and $175. It’s not a lot, but it’s also not nothing.

The newly launched “Golden State Start” is automatic and universal.

No paperwork.

No signing up.

No navigating a complicated process.

Starting this summer, families will simply leave the hospital with 400 free diapers upon discharge. pic.twitter.com/0uhfRmpfen

— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) May 11, 2026

For Newsom, however, this is about generating good PR before launching his expected 2028 presidential bid. “This is what affordability looks like,” he boasted to reporters. “It’s not a slogan. It’s a box. It’s a box of diapers.” Bold words from a governor whose state is the least affordable one in the entire country.

Even many on the Right might encourage this type of gesture, considering it is seemingly a pro-family one — though that’s puzzling because Newsom has also made California an abortion Mecca. Free diapers for the two-thirds of babies who survive gestation in the state. The problem is that it is being facilitated through the government, and there is nothing straightforward about “free,” almost literal nanny state items and services.

That certainly seems true in this case because something is definitely off with the math. Newsom is giving $20 million to the non-governmental organization Baby2Baby to fund diapers for the first 100,000 babies. However, when you do the math, each diaper costs $0.50.

In a big-box store, the most affordable diapers are $0.15-$0.30, give or take. Moreover, state-funded diapers are unlikely to be manufactured by a pricier brand like Pampers. In other words, something definitely stinks.

How much are diapers at Target compared to Gavin Newsom’s government diapers paid for by YOUR taxes?

We went to take a look: pic.twitter.com/iahLUbm1Fm

— Steve Hilton (@SteveHiltonx) May 10, 2026

Diapers that cost two or three times as much as a store’s generic diapers should raise eyebrows. People wonder: Is this a government scam? Theories are flying as to where the extra money is going.

Baby2Baby, the NGO supplying the diapers, has already said it costs them only $ 0.06 to make each diaper, which should make the total burden on taxpayers something more like $2.4 million for those 100,000 babies. As The Daily Wire’s Isabel Brown ponders, “Where is the other $0.44 a diaper coming from?” And how is another $17.6 million in taxpayer money being wiped out?

Turns out it may be a money-laundering scam. Brown noted that Norah Weinstein, the CEO of Baby2Baby, just happens to be best friends with Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Gavin’s wife. Apparently, Weinstein sits on the board of directors for the California Partners Project, which Mrs. Newsom cofounded.

So, at first glance, this seems like an attempt to enrich the governor’s friends at taxpayer expense. But that’s only one side of this very suspicious scheme.

Hollywood producer Jamie Patricof, the husband of Baby2Baby’s co-CEO, Kelly Sawyer Patricof, is a big Democrat donor in California. Some are theorizing that the extra millions are being laundered and redirected into a Newsom presidential campaign fund via Weinstein or Patricof or both.

This idea of diapers for new moms seems benevolent, but it is quickly smeared with government inefficiency and the whiff of fraud.

A better solution, if taxpayers are going to fund affordability for new parents, is to give them money directly, either as a check or a tax credit. Instead, taxpayer dollars are likely being fed into the Democrat funding machine.

California voters should elect a governor who is neither a Democrat nor an alleged fraudster.