Lawmakers gathered at the State Capitol for the kick off of the 2009 legislative session.Fox Mankato's Ryan Gustafson was in St. Paul today and joins us with the latest.This year is a budget year in the state legislature, and forecasters say it could be one of the toughest ones ever.Fixing the state's five billion dollar budget shortfall will be no easy task.Rep. Terry Morrow says, "It's going to be challenging. There are going to be folks, including myself and my family, who are going to feel the impact of the decisions that we make. But I think everyone is committed to going the hard work."Sen. Kathy Sheran says, "All of the Senators would like to be able to support government services to its proper level, but we have a budget shortfall, we have to include cuts."Of course, this is not the first time the state has had to deal with cutting the budget, but with such a massive deficit, the DFL's comfortable lead in both the House and the Senate does not guarantee anything.Speaker of the House, Margaret Anderson Kelliher says, "At least 40 other states face similar or as bad of problems as we do, the challenge is how to keep Minnesota moving forward."Rep. Tony Cornish says, "They'll start out, you know, in a big group hug, but it might go downhill from there. We've got two real different personalities."And judging from the uncharacteristically long first session, which featured such resolutions as a failed ten dollar per day pay cut for legislators, Cornish may be on to something.Rep. Marty Seifert says, "For Republicans, who are interested in reducing the budget and size, scope, and influence of government in people's lives, it's going to be an opportunity. For Democrats, who are interested in preserving the status quo, or the welfare state, it's going to be tough on them, because there's no way we'll be able to sustain the really huge increases in the welfare bureaucracy."Local lawmakers agree cuts will have to be made.The challenge now; the two parties must come together and decide on a solution.In St. Paul, Ryan Gustafson, the Fox Mankato News at Nine.