Last updated on 2011.09.06
I see this bumper sticker quoting Saint Ronnie far too frequently: "The nine most terrifying words in the English Language: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" Like Sarah Palinand much popular conservativism, President Reagan's one-liner survives only if you don't think too hard about it.
Reagan's line doesn't seem to apply in Joplin, Missouri, as government provides all sorts of resources to help clean up tornado wreckage. It doesn't apply in Fort Pierre and Dakota Dunes, where Republicans Dennis Daugaard and Kristi Noem cheer FEMA help for flooded homeowners. It didn't apply in Madison when Dakota State University landed a 5.7-million-dollar federal grant to help South Dakota health care facilities implement electronic health records.
And it doesn't apply in my classroom. I can take personal umbrage at glib spoutings of Reagan's folksy non-wisdom, because it denigrates the job I get up to do every work day.
I currently teach French at Spearfish High School. As a public school teacher, I am "from the government." Every day, my job is to help people. I find that opportunity to help challenging. I find it fun. I find it the most rewarding work I've ever done.
Some students occasionally find my teaching scary. But it's not because I'm from the government or because I'm here to help. It's because my enthusiasm for this work arouses an intensity and a seriousness that can put off a student who was hoping to catch a few winks after lunch or coast to an easy A.
I suspect many more students and their parents would find it much scarier if we said We're quitting. We're shutting down the whole public school system. Don't ask us for help. The free market will help you learn all the French and algebra and civics you need. Such a suggestion would have frightened the knickerbockers off John Adams. it should have a similar affect on you and your pants.
I am a public high school French teacher. I am from the government. I am here to help. I take that duty very seriously. Unlike Ronald Reagan and various bumper-sticker-pundits, I don't think my job is a joke.
Update 2011.09.06 17:28 MDT: Katrina vanden Heuvel reminds us that most of the 9/11 first responders whom we so venerate were government workers. When government fails, says vanden Heuvel, "Our impulse should not be to renounce government; it should be to recapture and restore it."
It's too bad that Congress doesn't take its job seriously as you do and actually pass a budget instead of going on summer recess.
Let us hope Spearfish is ready for you, Mr. H.
I expect you are welcomed there with open arms, perhaps moreso than other less liberal or french places like Newell, or Belle Fourche, or Bulah, all of which are in my top 6 places in the Hills. I'm just sayin'
[CAH: Grudz! I thought Belle Fourche was French! ;-)]
So Ronald Reagan thought his job was a joke, eh? That's news to me.
In the private sector, everyone has to earn their bones every day. Every screw up costs customers who might never come back.
But with government, they don't even have to court you to get your business back. This difference is why a government worker would even think they have to say "I am here to help." They know the experience with government workers havent been the best.
Until the government workers are subject to dismissal rules like private workers for poor performance, the need for a government worker to be defensive and even think he has to tell us he is here to help will continue.
Proof is in the pudding. Just do it and dont try to convince us.
Troy,
I want to know which government jobs in South Dakota have great legal protections from poor performance. Earlier this summer, some state workers lost a right to appeal dismissal and layoffs.
I can't speak for all "government workers," but teachers seem to be rather easy to fire. As a French teacher new to the system, Cory can be dismissed without reason at any time during the next three years. After that, the administrator has to write up a report and he's due a pro forma hearing. Most private sector professional jobs have some sort of process like that. If a school system has bad teachers, blame the administrators.
As for being accountable, teachers have their bosses, their students, and a whole bunch of "helicopter parents"; some who seem to pilot updated versions of "Airwolf." (I hope you're not too young to get that allusion.)
I admit to having problems with some employees at various county courthouses. I also have had problems with private sector employees and managers. I've lived in enough small towns that have few options: one bar, one grocery store, one gas station, one bank etc. Those businesses don't have to work too hard to keep business because they know it's not cost effective for customers to drive somewhere else. Some provide great service; others not so much.
I just get a little tired of people complaining that government employees are uniquely horrible and private sector employees are uniquely gifted and dedicated.
People are people. They show up and screw up. They work because they need the money. Some turn in more than expected; some less. Most give an honest day's work. It doesn't matter if they work for the government or the private sector.
Troy, your comment does seem to get us off track. You appear to be complaining about government employees who are not here to help. As LK says, you can find lazybones in all fields. I have no patience for such individuals in any sector. But I'm talking about the insult Reagan and his parroters deliver to those of us who are here to help. I do "just do it" every day... but against such thoughtless insults as the Reagan bumper sticker, I do have to prove it as well.
It's tough enough getting some kids to ask for help over their own insecurities. We don't need someone additionally saying, "Oh, those teachers, they're from the government. If they say they want to help you, be afraid!" When I say I want to hlep, I mean it. That's why I keep doing this job (at least until Daugaard and the Legislature ax education again next year and cause schools to fire their foreign language teachers and replace the programs with a centralized online program from Minnesota).
Note also, Troy, that it seems unfair to say that folks can insult the profession all they want, whether with criticisms of specific teachers or with generalizations about government workers, but that workers who try to counter that criticism are supposed to just shut up and do their job. We do have a right of rebuttal.
LK,
I too think the complaint about government workers as a class is tiring and wholly inappropriate. I worked for 6.5 years in state government and find the vast majority competent, dilligent, and worthy of praise.
Unfortunately, there are so many built-in disincentives in dealing with non-performers to create an environment of toleration of poor performance that hurts the ability of the public to recieve great government service including:
1) The burden on a supervisor to fire an employee is cumbersome to the point it is often just not pursued.
2) There is insufficient incentive for the supervisor to fire an employee because the supervisor knows his supervisor faces the same cumbersome burden.
3) Fellow colleagues of the non-performer can pretty much ignore the non-performer. Instead of replacing them, there will just get more colleagues for hiring to get the job down.
Besides the extra cost and the inefficiency in government, the environment results in the public having contact with these non-performers which jades them to believe all government workers are like this. This is my rub. Most government workers don't deserve to be compared to the worst among them but they are.
The solution is not to say "I'm with the government and I'm here to help" which is admission this could be contrary to the person's last experience with a government worker but to remove obstacles to the removal of the government workers who foster the idea they are all loads.
You are correct that most if not all private sectors have procedures for work improvement plans and dismissal. However, I can absolutely assure you none take as long or as cumbersome as government.
C'mon now Cory, Troy voted forReagan or in 1980! And he met the man! AND he interned in the SD Legislature! He obviously, with this experience, knows far more than you, a lowly government employee, ever will. So stop trying to make points on your own personal blog that you aren't forcing anybody to read. Just shut up and take it like the rest of us.
Ugh. And my snarky post is riddled with errors. Oh Well, I can blame my crappy public school education/Liberal indoctrination for my poor spelling and sentence construction.
I think we're talking past each other a bit.
If you're having a problem with "I'm from the government and I'm here to help," I will admit that it smacks of desperation. I think that those who have to work to convince others that they are cool, funny, or wonderful spellers probably ain't all that.
I guess I just don't know what those burdensome regulations are. As I said, Cory can be unemployed tomorrow if his bosses want to get rid of him. Four years from tomorrow, a principal will have to write a one page document and the board will have to listen to Cory explain why he should have his job 30 minutes or so before saying that they agree with the principal. I really don't see how that's burdensome.
Michael,
My post was written before I read yours. Nothing in it is meant to refer to your snark or poor spelling. Mine is far worse.
Lk:
I believe the original post is about Federal Gov. emp. not state level. That could be a difference.
You may be right about a educator being dismissed for no reason until the aquire tenure, but what about those educators once they get that protected status? There are/were several here in the Madison School Disrtict who are/were a little too comfortable in their positions and their job performance reflected this. I believe Corey knows who these individuals are.
No, Tim. It's about all levels of government. And Tim, the individuals to whom you refer are not saying "I'm here to help." They should be removed, and can be, if parents and taxpayers have the political will, just as bad actors in the private market can be removed if consumers have the financial will.
I think it is funny that no one ever seems to actually read things, or check up on things.... Reagan's quote came from the President's News Conference on August 12, 1986, and here is a little bit more context of what he was saying:
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"As you know and have been told, I do have a short statement here. Before we begin, I thought I'd mention that one reason for our visit to Illinois, especially this morning at the State fair, was to bring a special message to America's farmers, one of concern and hope. Amid general prosperity that has brought record employment, rising incomes, and the lowest inflation in more than 20 years, some sectors of our farm economy are hurting, and their anguish is a concern to all Americans.
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I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help. A great many of the current problems on the farm were caused by government-imposed embargoes and inflation, not to mention government's long history of conflicting and haphazard policies. Our ultimate goal, of course, is economic independence for agriculture, and through steps like the tax reform bill, we seek to return farming to real farmers. But until we make that transition, the Government must act compassionately and responsibly. In order to see farmers through these tough times, our administration has committed record amounts of assistance, spending more in this year alone than any previous administration spent during its entire tenure. No area of the budget, including defense, has grown as fast as our support for agriculture."
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Here is where he said it again with remarks to Representatives of the Future Farmers of America on July 28, 1988:
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"When I first started traveling abroad as President, especially to our annual economic summits, I suggested that the best foreign aid or development program the United States could give the world was a crash study in free enterprise. And this idea was, to say the least, greeted with skepticism. But when America's economic miracle took over and as we created during the past 67 months 17 million new jobs, I noticed that the idea of fostering growth through encouraging the entrepreneur began to take hold -- even to the point where the emphasis on agricultural subsidies, once so sacrosanct in other nations, is giving way at these summits to ideas on how to develop more free enterprise. There seems to be an increasing awareness of something we Americans have known for some time: that the 10 most dangerous words in the English language are, ``Hi, I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.''
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Well, of course, sometimes government can help and should help -- natural disasters like the drought, for example -- but we need to look to a future where there's less, not more, government in our daily lives. It's that philosophy that brought us the prosperity and growth that we see today. That's why we've proposed nothing less than a total phaseout by the year 2000 of all policies that distort trade in agriculture, and I'm speaking of worldwide. This proposal reflects one of my abiding beliefs -- I think it's a belief that you share: The solution to the world agricultural problem is to get government out of the way and let farmers compete."
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President Reagan obviously, from the quotes at least, recognizes the role of government, especially in natural disasters, but wanted its influence limited in a person's daily life. He did plenty of other questionable things, why not attack him with those (How about that South American foreign policy?)
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As a side note, as probably the only person commenting who works for the Federal Government (the government that RR is referring to), I find the quote hilarious, as does every other Federal Employee that has heard it. It is a must have quote on many a cubicle wall in the North Capitol Region. Maybe it is because we see on a daily basis the bureaucracy of Federal Government, and it is humorous to think of adding more rules, regulations, and red tape to an already problem situation.
Fascinating context, Joe! Good work! It is good to note that I can't demonize Reagan. He acknowledged the vital role of government. The bumper-sticker crowd need to get bigger bumpers so they can include that more balanced discussion.
Worth noting: We didn't come anywhere near Reagan's goal of completely privatizing agriculture. Kristi Noem would have none of that.
And how much of the government's "help", is debt? Anybody, who has the right to print legal tender (Federal Reserve), can print money, give it away, and charge taxpayers with the interest...and during that process control the government dependents with regulations.
I'm just intrigued that Spearfish school board members decided to offer French.
"I’m just intrigued that Spearfish school board members decided to offer French."
Since they are supposedly so under funded, you would have thought they would have limited themselves to english.
Steve, let's keep it simple and assume that some straight percentage (currently 40%?) of every federal expenditure is money we don't have.
Bob, I am intrigued and grateful that Spearfish offers French! There's been unusual interest in French here -- I'm still not sure why.
But the fact that I have this job now is part luck. Last year, there were two Spanish teachers and one French teacher. One of the Spanish teachers resigned. That made the budget cutting decision easier for the board. The French teacher left late, at the beginning of August; the school decided to stick with its earlier plan and keep both languages. But where last year there were three foreign language teachers, this year there are just two of us. Had the French teacher resigned first, the district might have ended that program and stuck with two Spanish teachers.