No agreement to stave off the fiscal cliff exists as of today, though there’s hope lawmakers can make a deal before year’s end. Budget negotiations will likely dominate the conversation in the weeks ahead, but what economic issues will Washington be talking about the rest of 2013?

Marketplace Washington reporter David Gura shares his predictions for the year ahead.

On taxes:

“The fiscal cliff has sort of set the table for more conversations about taxes and tax reform. That conversation about changing what companies pay, changing what we pay, and changing how capital gains are taxed is going to continue in the new year.”

On spending:

“Before the fiscal cliff was even the so-called ‘fiscal cliff’, the White House was talking about scaling back some departmental budgets, including the Pentagon budget. This is something that agencies have been preparing for, and lawmakers have been thinking about and are going to keep thinking about in 2013.

On financial reform:

“We are going to get new leadership at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mary Schapiro, who headed [the SEC] just stepped down. She was instrumental in writing a lot of the rules that were part of Dodd-Frank. This is an ongoing process, there is still a lot of these rules to be written and to be approved, so that fight over what financial reform is going to look like is certainly going to continue into the new year.”

To hear more about what’s next for Washington, click the audio player above.