Your analogies are not working for me.
In the case of the speed limit sign, Fife puts up a legal speed limit sign. he then gets in his personal car and blows past the sign at 100mph over the posted limit, with no siren or lights going. In order to avoid a ticket from Andy, he claims he had to go that fast (but without citing avalid reason).
Does Andy give him a ticket, or does he “let it slide”?
An HONEST Andy gives the ticket.
The PAYGO violation is a distraction only to the extent that repubs allow it to be trated that way. If this lawbreaking were trumpeted loudly all around as just another example of UNETHICAL DEMOCRATS!
That’s a nice reuse of the analogy, but I think it actually helps me make my case a little better. In your version, Barney voluntarily and arbitrarily chooses to break his own law. He is not driving a truck, therefore there is no issue with massive momentum or the risk of serious harm through an accident. And there is no element of surprise. Barney can therefore not qualify as a victim of the wrongdoing of another. He is the victim of his own malfeasance. Ticket away.
By contrast, in Congress, we now have two distinct parties struggling with each other in what amounts to the political equivalent of mortal combat. One party will eventually emerge from this seriously, perhaps fatally, damaged. The dominant party, the party of lawlessness, imposed a rule on the party of law in order to produce the risk of real harm to private citizens, who have developed an admittedly unhealthy dependency on the continuity of government funding. Bad as that dependency is, disrupting the continuity with no warning whatsoever could have harmful effects on otherwise innocent third parties. This is by design, which is what makes Barney’s capriciousness particularly evil. It is entrapment, and a court adjudicating in Mayberry, or even Mount Pilot, might well and rightly toss that ticket.