A prominent critic has emerged against Governor Gavin Newsom’s newly unveiled initiative to provide free diapers to newborns in California, labeling the plan as “grifting nonsense.” This criticism comes from Peter Basios, the founder of an organic baby formula company.
Newsom introduced the Golden State Start program on Friday. In collaboration with the nonprofit organization Baby2Baby, the initiative aims to supply every newborn in participating hospitals with 400 complimentary diapers.
The program has sparked controversy due to its financial structure, which involves allocating $20 million in taxpayer funds to a nonprofit organization. This organization is led by an executive who also serves on the board of a foundation associated with Newsom’s wife, which advocates for gender equity.
Basios suggests a more cost-effective approach, proposing that the state could simply give “every low-income new mom $100 cash and tell her to shop at Costco” instead of paying 50 cents per diaper.
Using social media platform X, Basios broke down the math: “100,000 babies × 400 diapers equals 40 million diapers. When you divide $20 million by 40 million diapers, it results in a cost of $0.50 per diaper. Yet, at any Costco in California, you can purchase comparable diapers for just 12 to 15 cents each.”
He further emphasized the disparity in costs by stating, “That’s between $48 to $60 for 400 diapers. Thus, the state is paying 8 to 10 times more per diaper than what an average family would pay when buying in bulk.”
Basios called the initiative “peak government stupidity,” and slammed Newsom for “funding another bloated nonprofit-government grift.”
A sentiment echoed by Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, who claimed Newsom’s diaper program is “three times more expensive” than what someone could by at the store.
“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 bullshit nonprofit which the cronies of his are going to make money,” he said in a post on X.
Hilton instead said the answer is cutting taxes so parents can afford to buy diapers in the first place, “not sending it out in this ridiculous bureaucratic scheme.”
The Post reached out to Newsom’s office for comment, but has not heard back.
Newsom is touting the “first-in-the-nation program” as part of a broader strategy to tackle affordability by “leveraging the bulk purchasing power of the state” to “distribute high-quality, mass-produced diapers directly to families.”
