California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton walked into a Target store, grabbed a box of diapers off the shelf, and did some math that Gov. Gavin Newsom probably wishes he hadn't. The result: a viral video alleging that the governor's new taxpayer-funded diaper program pays roughly three times what parents would spend at a big-box retailer, and that the difference flows through a nonprofit with ties to the Newsom family's orbit.
Hilton, a former Fox News host now running for governor, laid out the numbers in a social media post. The state's "Golden State Start" initiative earmarks $20 million in public funds to supply 400 free diapers to families of newborns at participating hospitals. Hilton calculated that the program works out to about $0.50 per diaper. Standing in the Target aisle, he pointed to a box priced at $15.62, or roughly $0.16 per diaper.
The gap, if Hilton's arithmetic holds, is not small. And the question he posed, why the state doesn't simply leave the money in parents' bank accounts, is the kind of common-sense challenge that Sacramento rarely answers well.
The program's funding comes in two tranches. California allocated $7.4 million in last year's budget for the initial rollout, and Newsom's latest budget proposal requests an additional $12.5 million through the fiscal year ending in June 2027, the Washington Times reported. The first phase covers roughly 65 to 75 hospitals that handle about a quarter of births statewide, with plans to expand later.
Newsom framed the initiative in feel-good terms. "Every baby born in California deserves a healthy start in life, and that means making sure parents have the basics they need from day one," the governor said in a statement. State Health Secretary Kim Johnson echoed the sentiment, saying the first days at home with a newborn "should be focused on the love, connection, and joy of an expanded family, not stress about affording diapers."
Nobody disputes that diapers are expensive. Nobody disputes that low-income families feel the pinch. What critics dispute is whether routing $20 million through a state bureaucracy and a handpicked nonprofit is the cheapest, or the most honest, way to get diapers to babies.
The nonprofit at the center of the program is Baby2Baby. Breitbart reported that Baby2Baby's co-CEO, Norah Weinstein, sits on the board of the California Partners Project, an organization founded by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the governor's wife. That overlap has drawn pointed questions about whether the contract reflects need, or networking.
Fox News Digital reported his claim that the inflated cost traces directly to insider arrangements:
"Because he is going to some total nonsense nonprofit, which the cronies of his are going to make money."
In a separate interview, Hilton pressed the point further. "Instead of taking our money, putting into some scheme that benefits their friends and cronies," he said, "why don't they let us just keep more of our money in the first place so we can decide how to spend our money?"
Republican congressional candidate Melissa Bailey went further still in a post on X, alleging a direct pipeline between the governor's office and the nonprofit world. "Gavin Newsom is stealing taxpayer money, laundering it to a nonprofit run by his wife's friend, to buy diapers at $.50 a pop," Bailey wrote. "Diapers cost less than half that at major retailers. Connected insiders win. Taxpayers lose."
The allegation of insider favoritism fits a pattern that has drawn growing scrutiny over the relationship between the Newsom administration and its preferred nonprofit partners.
Hilton's comparison, $0.50 per diaper versus $0.16 at Target, drew immediate attention. Businessman Marcus Lemonis weighed in on X with a three-word verdict: "Math always wins."
Other critics pushed the numbers even harder. Peter Basios, writing on X, calculated that the state's cost could be eight to ten times higher than what a regular family pays buying diapers in bulk. "So the state is paying 8, 10x more per diaper than a regular family buying in bulk," the New York Post reported Basios wrote.
To be fair, government programs carry administrative overhead, distribution logistics, hospital partnerships, outreach to eligible families. Some cost premium over shelf price is expected. But a three-to-one gap, let alone the eight-to-ten-times figure Basios cited, suggests something beyond ordinary overhead. It suggests a program designed around the provider, not the recipient.
Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom's office for comment. The governor's team did not immediately respond.
The diaper program does not exist in a vacuum. California's Legislative Analyst's Office has warned the state faces structural deficits ranging from $20 billion to $35 billion annually in coming years, Fox News reported. Launching a new entitlement program while staring down that kind of fiscal hole raises obvious questions about priorities.
Fox News contributor and retired Marine Joey Jones connected the dots during a television appearance. His argument: if Democrats genuinely cared about the cost of raising a family in California, they would stop making it so expensive in the first place.
"Don't charge them [$2 extra a gallon for gas] because that needs to be special California gas, and there's this crazy, weird surcharge that you don't even know where it comes from. Don't do things like spend a hundred million dollars [on a land bridge] so the California cougars can get from one side of the interstate to the other."
Jones summed up the governor's approach with a line that landed: "What do you do? You put a Band-Aid on a tourniquet problem and run for president."
That critique, that Newsom creates headline-friendly programs to paper over systemic failures, is one his administration has faced repeatedly. Even Bill Maher has pressed the governor on California's ballooning infrastructure costs and gas prices during a sit-down interview.
The state's fiscal management has drawn fire from multiple directions. Allegations of massive fraud and waste under Newsom's watch have been the subject of investigative reporting estimating losses in the hundreds of billions. And California Democrats themselves have faced questions after a $2 billion budget miscalculation went undisclosed for months before becoming public.
Bailey's post on X distilled the conservative objection to a single line: "There's no such thing as a free diaper." The diapers are real. The cost is real. The only question is who pays, and how much extra gets skimmed along the way.
Hilton's video posed that question with a box of Huggies in his hand. The state's $20 million program, he argued, could buy the same diapers at retail for a fraction of the price. The difference doesn't vanish. It goes somewhere. And when the nonprofit receiving the contract has board-level ties to the governor's wife, the somewhere starts to look less like public service and more like a favor.
Newsom's office has not explained the cost gap. It has not named the specific expenses that justify paying three times retail. It has not addressed the Baby2Baby board overlap. It simply didn't respond.
That silence is its own kind of answer. When a governor spends $20 million of other people's money and can't explain where it goes, the people paying the bill deserve better than a press release about "healthy starts" and a refusal to pick up the phone.
California families don't need a governor who gives them diapers at triple the price. They need one who stops treating the state treasury like a favor bank.
