Unable to stop the sequester’s job-killing spending cuts, President Obama now says he wants to move past the endless wars of budget attrition. Though he still wants a long-term deficit deal, he said last week, it is time to turn to immigration, gun control, universal preschool, a higher minimum wage and voting reform.

But Republicans are not going to allow that pivot. Most are unalterably opposed to all of those initiatives, and want to keep their focus on cutting domestic programs and fighting off tax increases. At a time when Republicans are divided on many social issues, the budget wars are one of the few things that unite them.

A variety of insidious new budget proposals are now emerging from the House. On Wednesday, by a 267-to-151 vote, the House approved a stopgap spending resolution to keep the government running for the last half of the fiscal year, replacing the one that expires on March 27.

Such “continuing resolutions,” which fund the government at the previous year’s level, demonstrate Congress’s inability to do its most basic job of making spending decisions. But this new resolution is worse because it also includes the sequester’s brutal cuts — except in a few crucial areas that are Republican priorities.