All my life, I’ve heard the phrase “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help” bandied about, usually oozing sarcasm all the while. But what’s the source of this phrase? It seems to be ubiquitious enough that it would be a quotation from somewhere, but my Google-fu is not strong enough to dispel all the webpages bearing the phrase, so I turn to the SDMB. Any ideas?
Ronald Reagan. I think.
Dunno 'bout the original source, but I’ve always heard it as one of “The Three Biggest Lies You’ll Ever Hear.” The other two are “I love you” and “The check’s in the mail.”
From Love at First Bite (1979):
Renfield: I think they’re from the government.
Count Dracula: How do you know?
Renfield: They’re wearing shoes.
ISTR Carter-era origins, but then I’m just a young punk, so that may be faulty.
Oh, and I am a U.S. Government employee, and I can attest that we utter this phrase in various degrees of sarcasm more often than you’d think.
I suspect that it’s pretty old, although I could not find a specific date (or range) for it.
There is a corporate version, as well:
The second biggest lie in business:
“Hi. We’re from the front office, and we’re here to help!”
The biggest lie in business:
“We’re glad to see you.”
I don’t know the answer, though as long as wer’e talking about context, I’ve heard it as
I knew it was Ronald Reagan.
Hehehe… we say, “We’re from Vehicle Operations. We’re here to help.”
I think this quote sprang up in popular culture, and probably appeared in tv shows, etc. The earliest print usage I know was George Will, published July 19, 1976. He said,
The American condition can be summed up in three sentences we’re hearing these days:
“Your check is in the mail.”
“I will respect you as much in the morning.”
“I am from the government and I am here to help you.”
You can find it in Shapiro’s Yale Book of Quotations.
Well, Will was Reagan’s debate coach during his 1980 campaign (which apparently included stealing the Carter campaign’s briefing book for St. Ronnie), so this makes sense. It’s the kind of thing Will would come up with.
Combining the two, I can tell you that in while in a government field office, the coldest chills down my spine start with “We’re from D.C. …”