President Bush's State of the Union address drew mixed reaction from local residents, lawmakers and advocacy groups. In his speech, the president laid out an ambitious agenda that included social security, tax and immigration reform at home, and broad gestures of support for democracy abroad.

During the 50-minute speech, he also thanked members of the military. Specifically, he thanked the parents of Sgt. Byron W. Norwood, a Camp Pendleton-based Marine killed fighting in Fallujah last November.

San Diego Congressman Duncan Hunter, whose district includes parts of North County, described the speech as "moving."

"There were polls (before the elections in Iraq) that said 80 percent of (Iraqis) didn't like us, and they turned out to vote," Hunter said. "But they were only able to turn out because of our sailors and Marines."

The president said that the mission of the military in Iraq would now shift heavily toward training Iraqi forces to take over security of their country. Once the transfer is made, U.S. service men and women may gradually begin to return home, he said, but he stopped short of giving a time table for their return.

Bush said that while progress in being made in Iraq, Afghanistan and between Israelis and Palestinians, other countries should move to provide greater freedom for their people.

Syria should "open the door to freedom," he said. And he called Iran a "primary state sponsor of terror."

The president began his speech with a long list of proposals, including health care savings accounts, tort reform, revamping the tax code, creating a guest worker program and private retirement accounts.

However, Mike Byron, a political science professor at Palomar College and former Democratic candidate for Congress, said the president's speech was short on details.

"In part, he is trying to conceal from Americans what those items really mean," Byron said.

Byron said some of the president's proposals appeared contradictory, such as cutting the nation's deficit in half and at the same time making the tax cuts he implemented earlier in his presidency permanent. He called Bush's comments "deeply deceptive and misleading."

Bush spoke at length about reforming Social Security, which he said would begin to pay out more in benefits than in takes in by 2018 and would go "bankrupt" in 2042. His comments drew loud boos from the Democratic side of the aisle.

One of the programs he proposed was private "retirement accounts" for younger workers that some have said would cost $1 trillion to $2 trillion to implement over the first 10 years. Bush did not say how he would propose to pay for it, but he ruled out reducing benefits to older Americans or increasing Social Security contributions.

Hunter said he agreed with the president's call to reform Social Security, but would not say whether he supported the president's plan to create private retirement accounts.

"We haven't seen the details of his proposal," he said. "The devil is going to be in the details."

In another controversial idea, the president repeated his call for a guest worker program that would enable foreign workers "to fill jobs that Americans will not take."

Andy Ramirez, executive director with the Friends of the Border Patrol, said the president's proposals for immigration reform were inconsistent with national security. The group was formed after a Temecula-based unit of the U.S. Border Patrol that conducted immigration sweeps in North County and Riverside County was disbanded by top immigration officials.

"Mr. President, you are dead wrong on this issue," Ramirez said.

Bush called the nation's immigration system "outdated" and "unsuited to the needs of our economy and the values of our country." But he did not repeat his call to temporarily legalize millions of illegal immigrants residing in the country, as he has in the past.

"We should not be content with the laws that punish hard-working people who want only to provide for their families," he said. "It's time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers … that rejects amnesty; that tells us who is entering and leaving our country; and that closes the borders to drug dealers and terrorists."

Contact staff writer Edward Sifuentes at (760) 740-5426 or esifuentes@nctimes.com.