NASHVILLE (WVLT) -- Governor Phil Bredesen has announced that state legislators need to get back to the basics. That was the general theme of his annual “State of the State Address” which he delivered from the state capital on Monday evening.

Tennessee lawmakers are calling the current financial problems in Nashville part of the state’s worst financial crisis in decades. The governor seems to agree though he did hint at a sense of Déjà vu during the speech by recalling that in his first “State of the State Address” in 2003, Tennessee also faced a budget shortfall.

Bredesen didn’t go into details about the state’s new budget and impending shortfall. Instead he focused on the nuts and bolts of several problems facing the state, like family budgets, job creation, health care, bi-partisanship and education.

The speech was also met with several protestors from a number of causes. Elizabeth Owen was among them. She worries the state government has plans to bury her future as well as the future of her fellow college students.

“We want to make our voice heard,” she said. “We want the governor to hear us.”

Owen is a senior at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and she was just one of the hundred students from across the state who participated in a mock funeral on the steps of the state capitol. The demonstration featured fake caskets and tombstones meant to symbolize how possible budget cuts could kill Tennessee’s colleges and universities.

“We got cut last year because we didn't stand up in time, so we are standing up today,” she

Gov. Bredesen admitted things were getting tough in the Volunteer State. Tennessee faces a $900 million budget shortfall and he is waiting to find out the results of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, otherwise known as the economic stimulus plan.

“Please let me make this clear,” he said, “no proposed version of the stimulus bill is any panacea or silver bullet; substantial cuts are still needed under any circumstances.”

With out the stimulus package, higher education could loose more than $180 million. Gov. Bredsen believes federal aid could greatly reduce that figure.

“The costs of Tennessee higher education continue to grow, and the ability of state government to cover them is limited,” he said. “That has meant raising tuition, and every increase means that much more difficulty for some student, that much more likelihood of abandoning the dream of a college degree. It's time now to fix that.

Owen said she plans to keep fighting, in order to make sure whatever federal dollars arrive don't become dead on arrival for her education
Bredesen reminded the legislature that any stimulus money received would be one time funds and that he doesn't simply want to push the budget problems back two years for the next governor. He also warned legislators to remain cautious about the states rainy day fund, because you never know how long the recession could last.

He plans to present the new state budget at the end of March.