By Michael Leppert
The Indiana Citizen
April 23, 2025
I have often wondered where the phrase “spinning a yarn” came from, and what differentiates the descriptive from the blunter, “making stuff up.” This week’s absurd spin, courtesy of Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, finally inspired me to do a little search for it.
Merriam-Webster theorizes that “it may be connected to the sailor’s task of rope making,” because of the path of the term’s traceable usage through the maritime world. The tedious process of twisting fibers into yarns, yarns into strands, and then strands into rope by hand must have been torturous in the early 1800s, when the term first appeared in print. “It is likely that tales were told by the sailors while making rope, leading to the figurative use ‘spinning a yarn’ for storytelling.”
Piles of rope were apparently made in the Indiana Statehouse last week in response to the updated and gloomy revenue forecast. Some mysterious set of circumstances turned the December forecast of $800 million in growth for the next biennium into more than $2 billion of expected losses. Hmm. What changed?
As reported by Arika Herron for Axios Indianapolis, “The dismal forecast is driven by slower than expected growth in jobs and wages, stock market declines and the effects of federal policies around tariffs, immigration and spending cuts.” Uh, yea. That was as predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise. But while the forecast is truly dismal, it is still just a forecast. There is no reason to be certain in it because the source of its dismal nature is uncertainty itself. Reality could be worse.
And here’s where the fibers-to-yarns process begins.
Gov. Braun issued a statement the day the forecast was released. He said: “Today’s forecast reflects what we are dealing with in the aftermath of disastrous Bidenflation. There will be some tough times ahead, but the America First economic policies we are pursuing here and in Washington will unleash an economic boom.”
Wow. In those two prepared sentences, and I emphasize that they were prepared, the Indiana governor is blaming the former president for the problem, acknowledging tough times ahead, and topping it off with baseless economic optimism that the state’s own forecasters won’t predict. That’s an awful lot of rope.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, or DJIA, is not everything with regard to the American economy. But it’s data, not spin. When the market closed on January 17th, the last day it was open during President Biden’s term, its value was 43,487. On April 21st, it closed at 38,170. I will do the math. It’s a drop of 5,317 points, or a 12.2% reduction in value. That is not Bidenflation. That is the cost of the trade war started by President Donald Trump. Pointing to anything else is more than just spinning yarns, it’s more akin to taking the rope and tying it into a noose around Hoosiers’ necks.
Pretending that the cause of the economic crisis is something other than the obvious only perpetuates the crisis. That’s what Gov. Braun is doing with his statement. It’s also a feature of the political realities of today’s Republican Party. Leaders of the GOP, and in Indiana that starts with the governor, should be pressuring the White House for stability, not pretending that the trade war isn’t causing what we can all see it causing with our own calculators.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said last week that the tumult of tariffs, executive orders, court battles, and cuts to federal services under the Trump administration are exceptionally concerning, as reported by the Anchorage Daily News. But importantly, she added, “We are all afraid. …I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real.”
Everyone, and I mean everyone, knows what the cause of the crisis is, but virtually no one in the GOP is willing to even say it out loud. Gov. Braun would prefer to combine blaming the past with fantasies of future prosperity in his public commentary. None of which mitigates the actual math.
Budget writers in the Indiana General Assembly do not have the luxury of pretending that the “economic boom” part of the ridiculous spin is reality. Their knives are out for the cuts needed to account for the forecast, and they have no optimism in their task.
Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Mishawaka, chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. In comparing the current challenges to the 2008 recession, which caused a billion dollar shortfall in the state’s budget, he said, “This one scares me a lot more because the number is a lot higher. And back then, if you remember, we had federal money to backfill. We don’t have any federal money to backfill. This is all on us,” as reported by the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
What’s on us is the rope. Pretending it’s not won’t keep Indiana from hanging.
Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
