Two good reads.

Nick Gillespie: 5 Scenes from a Sequestered America – Reason.com: “We’re not quite yet a week into the sequester,” writes Reason’s Nick Gillespie, who notes that just this morning he received an Obama fundraising email that called the automatic budget cuts that went into effect on March 1 “Devastating.”

And of course, Dr. Sowell.

Budget Politics – RealClearPolitics: Back in my teaching days, many years ago, one of the things I liked to ask the class to consider was this: Imagine a government agency with only two tasks: (1) building statues of Benedict Arnold and (2) providing life-saving medications to children. If this agency’s budget were cut, what would it do? The answer, of course, is that it would cut back on the medications for children. Why? Because that would be what was most likely to get the budget cuts restored. If they cut back on building statues of Benedict Arnold, people might ask why they were building statues of Benedict Arnold in the first place.

And finally, Dr. Boudreaux.

Sequesterphobia – TribLIVE: By the time you read this column, the world will have ended. However, on the off-chance that the Earth is still spinning, your belly is likely full of botulism contracted from the horse-meat hamburger you ate for lunch. Although you’re fatally ill, you can get no professional medical help because all hospitals and clinics have been shuttered. Your only option is to self-medicate.