PHILADELPHIA — Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant told a Neshoba County Fair audience Wednesday that writing a state budget this year required tough decisions.

Bryant said he and Gov. Haley Barbour, a fellow Republican, made sure the state was frugal during the recession.

"In looking at the state's budget, the easy road is spending money we don't have just so you don't have to make any cuts or to blame someone else for making cuts later," Bryant said, according to a prepared text. "The hard road is being honest and not going into debt and making sure we live within our means."

Barbour is scheduled to speak Thursday at the Neshoba County Fair, an annual homecoming that attracts thousands of people to the red clay hills of east central Mississippi.

Because there are no statewide or congressional elections this year, there are fewer political speeches than usual under the tin-roofed pavilion on the fairgrounds outside Philadelphia. Heavy rains Wednesday caused some potential spectators to skip the speeches and seek shelter inside dozens of cabins that line the fairgrounds.

Barbour cannot seek a third term in 2011, and Bryant is among those expected to run for governor. However, neither Bryant nor the other current statewide office holders have been using their speeches to outline campaign plans.

Attorney General Jim Hood, a Democrat, said he knows some political prognosticators were expecting him to say whether he's running for governor in 2011.

"We'll wait until next year to talk about that kind of stuff," Hood said in an interview.

Hood said his speech focused on "what I'm having fun doing," including pursuing cases against people accused of intellectual property theft.

State Auditor Stacey Pickering — whose family fed nearly 300 guests at a cabin Wednesday — said state and local officials need to be careful with the way they spend federal stimulus money. He said federal officials are warning that regulations for the money could change next year.

"We need to make sure that we don't let the financial house of Mississippi burn down," Pickering said.

Pickering's office is releasing a performance audit to show how state agencies have been spending the stimulus money so far. He said the document could be posted to the auditor's Web site later this week.