House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA.) bleated the government shutdown is on its way to being one of the longest in history unless Democrats accept the House-passed, GOP-crafted stopgap bill to reopen the government. "We're barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history, unless Democrats dropped their partisan demands and passed a clean, no-strings-attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers," Johnson whined on the 13th day of the government shutdown. Congress has been locked in a standoff over government funding as Democrats demand that Republicans make concessions on health care, notably Affordable Care Act tax credits that are expiring at the end of the year. GOP leaders have refused to negotiate on health care during a shutdown, arguing that that Democrats must accept the "clean" funding stopgap the House passed in September " and which has failed to advance in the Senate seven times.