Out with the old and in with the new. Keep on keepin’ on. What’s done is done. Keep your eyes on the prize.

The list of clichés urging us to always look forward is endless. True, it’s good to be optimistic; but in a new year, what do we really have to look forward to? With 2012 now on the record books and 2013 just beginning (and still no jet packs, mind you), there’s a chance that legislatures – primarily federal legislators – can break away from the “do nothingness” that plagued 2012. The question is, will they? What challenges at the of the last year will finally be resolved this year at the national, state and local levels (that is, if any are resolved at all)? Mainly, what promise do taxpayers have that things in 2013 will be any different as we enter another year of unknowns?

So far, 2013 seems to have picked up where 2012 left off, with political partisanship in Washington driving a wedge even further between Democrats and Republicans. Heated debates over gun regulations – or lack thereof – have people up in arms (figuratively and literally, as seen in the spike of gun sales); and this week, the fiscal cliff debacle was met with only a temporary solution that ensures tougher debates are right around the corner, when lawmakers once again address the national debt ceiling.