{"id":2602552,"date":"2026-05-14T08:20:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/californias-government-diaper-dispensary-serves-fraudsters-not-families\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T08:23:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T12:23:31","slug":"californias-government-diaper-dispensary-serves-fraudsters-not-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/californias-government-diaper-dispensary-serves-fraudsters-not-families\/","title":{"rendered":"California\u2019s Diaper Giveaway Serves Fraudsters, Not Families"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcalifornias-government-diaper-dispensary-serves-fraudsters-not-families%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2602552&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article argues that California Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s promised \u201cfree diaper\u201d program is likely driven more by fraud, waste, and cronyism than by genuine aid too newborns. It claims California typically cannot estimate or control costs effectively, pointing to examples of major public boondoggles like the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pro-trump-religious-groups-begin-turning-up-heat-on-gop-to-take-action-on-marjorie-taylor-greene\/\" title=\"Pro-Trump, Religious Groups Begin Turning Up Heat On GOP To Take Action On Marjorie Taylor Greene\">high-speed rail project<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p>The author suggests it would be cheaper and more straightforward to provide diapers through existing large retailers rather than funding a specialized diaper nonprofit with ties to newsom allies. While acknowledging the best-case argument that some free diapers are better than none, the piece insists that \u201cfree\u201d diapers are never truly free because taxpayers pay, and money spent on overhead, graft, or self-serving nonprofit salaries is portrayed as a form of theft from both families and babies.  <\/p>\n<p>The article expands into a broader critique of how Democrats allegedly use government programs-to employ and support their political base, fund left-wing agendas, and channel money to favored client groups-arguing that inefficiency often serves the political purpose rather than improving outcomes.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Babies are proverbially easy to steal from, and California is going to swipe the very diapers off their bottoms.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has promised the opposite, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ABC\/status\/2053475473171022269\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announcing<\/a> a program to provide \u201cfree\u201d diapers to newborns. This is meant to appear as a generous and pro-baby plan, and Newsom was even <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/LilaGraceRose\/status\/2052869969738871294\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">applauded<\/a> by some pro-life and pro-family writers and activists. <\/p>\n<p>But this is California, notorious for <a href=\"https:\/\/christopherrufo.com\/p\/gavin-newsoms-empire-of-fraud\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fraud<\/a> and boondoggles ranging from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/04\/22\/us\/california-hospice-fraud.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">fake hospices<\/a> to the high-speed rail train to nowhere. So, in evaluating this program, it is pointless to try to parse the projected cost-per-diaper because California cannot accurately estimate such costs. That high-speed rail <a href=\"https:\/\/kmph.com\/news\/local\/california-high-speed-rail-price-tag-jumps-to-231b-nearly-seven-times-2008-estimate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">project<\/a> was supposed to cost $33 billion and be done in 2020; it is now projected to cost $231 billion with no end in sight.<\/p>\n<p>As this suggests, it would likely be far more cost-effective just to ship diapers from big retailers such as Amazon, Costco, and Walmart than to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/calif-democrat-reps-aim-to-make-abortion-a-right\/\" title=\"Calif. Democrat reps. aim to make abortion a right\">provide state funding<\/a> for a boutique <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/articles\/gavin-newsom-under-fire-over-014216892.html?guccounter=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">diaper NGO run by<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/equalpay.calpartnersproject.org\/team-collaborators\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a Newsom<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Kazanjy\/status\/2052921039861268696\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">crony<\/a>. Though a few optimists saw this as a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PTBwrites\/status\/2053137569836126516\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">welcome<\/a> effort to make California more baby-friendly, it is more likely a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NBlakeEPPC\/status\/2053126381836378365\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">wasteful grift<\/a> conducted under the PR veneer of helping babies. <\/p>\n<p>Of course, it can be <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PTBwrites\/status\/2053137569836126516\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">argued<\/a> that free diapers for babies, even with some grift, are better than no free diapers for babies \u2014 it may be a poor start, but at least it\u2019s a start, and making sure there are diapers for newborn babies is not the worst use of taxpayer money. Nonetheless, if this program is administered with typical California inefficiency, it will be not only wasteful but wicked. <\/p>\n<p>There is, after all, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/xan_desanctis\/status\/2053530389801508887\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">no such thing as a free diaper<\/a>. Someone is paying for it; in this case, it\u2019s California taxpayers. And it is evil to siphon off that money for other (self-serving) purposes. It is theft from both the taxpayers and the babies the money was supposed to help. <\/p>\n<p>The wrongdoing is obvious in cases of outright fraud, such as the now-<a href=\"https:\/\/wltreport.com\/2026\/04\/28\/breaking-fbi-raiding-quality-learing-center-20-locations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">infamous<\/a> \u201cQuality Learing Center\u201d in Minnesota. But ostensible help for the poor that is mostly spent on, say, generous NGO salaries, is not much better. If the government appropriates however many millions to help the poor, but most of it is eaten up by overhead and graft, this is just another form of stealing. Inefficiency slides into iniquity.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, even the best charities, programs, and NGOs will make mistakes. Sometimes something won\u2019t work, or a project will fail. And different missions require different uses of resources. But those that are still serving their mission will always be asking whether they are spending wisely and well. Furthermore, though charitable work may have goals beyond <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >efficiency \u2014 teen service projects<\/a>, for example, are often less about cost-effective results and more about forming character and inculcating a sense of service \u2014 there is little place for them in most government programs. And though workers, including those caring for the poor, deserve fair wages, those helping the poor have a duty to make sure that they are, well, helping the poor and not just using them to get comfortable sinecures for themselves, generate kickbacks for patrons, or indulge in activism.<\/p>\n<p>But those are what Democrats use government programs for. Though they use government spending to preen about caring for the downtrodden, their deeds demonstrate otherwise. For instance, when it comes to caring for babies, it is not pro-abortion Democrats who have been giving their own money to fund crisis pregnancy centers across California and the nation, many of which give diapers to mothers in need. Democrats prefer to spend government funds, which is to say, taxpayer funds. So, from <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ManhattanInst\/status\/2053940792171917819\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">education<\/a> to homelessness, vast sums are expended with, at best, mediocre results \u2014 if we judge by the stated goals of educating children or reducing homelessness. <\/p>\n<p>However, if we judge government spending by the metrics of employing the sort of people who make up the Democrat base, funding left-wing ideas and activism, and funneling money to left-wing client groups, it is very effective. This is why Democrats have to be prodded and shamed into restraining fraud, waste, and inefficiency. For them, those are features, not bugs. <\/p>\n<p>So we should be skeptical of Newsom\u2019s crony-run diaper giveaway. And when the program proves to be just one more entry in the long list of California grifting, we should emphasize the sinfulness of how Democrats run these programs. Taking money meant to help babies and instead using it to fund the Democrat adjutant class is evil, a crime that cries out to heaven for vengeance.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Nathanael Blake is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a fellow in the Life and Family Initiative at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/ignatius.com\/victims-of-the-revolution-vtrp\/\">Victims of the Revolution: How Sexual Liberation Hurts Us All<\/a>&#8221; (Ignatius, 2025).<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>California\u2019s \u201cfree\u201d diaper giveaway sounds kind-but seems like fraud and waste<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":538,"featured_media":2602553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/newsom-diapers-2.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4045,45185,79651,6909,79652],"class_list":["post-2602552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-california","tag-consumer-protection","tag-diaper-giveaway","tag-fraud","tag-nonprofit-scams"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/newsom-diapers-2.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/538"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2602552"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2602556,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602552\/revisions\/2602556"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2602553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2602552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2602552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2602552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}