The Signal from Santa Clarita, California • 6

Msskm Email: letterssignalscv.com Mail: The Signal, 24000 Creekside Road, Santa Clarita, CA 91355 Signal Editorial Board Jason Schaff, executive editor jasonsignalscv.com Russ Briley, publisher Lila Littlejohn, city editor lilasignalscv.com lana Adkins, business editor wkm FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2015 WWW.SIGNALSCV.COM A6 jana4Psignalscv.com Unless otherwise stated, the views and opinions expressed are those of the respective authors and do not necessarily represent the views of The Signal Drawing Conclusions Jeff Stahler free THIS DROUGHT 15 H5 REALLY GETTING BAD. YELCOtfE TO 1 hVw WAP4 ti i wrrw it at n-. collesre' Cameron KLJ) i Letters to the EDITOR Keep government from meddling in medical issues myself or my children? Vaccines carry risks of permanent injury, disability or death. When there is a risk, there must be a choice. In 2012 Gov.

Jerry Brown signed legislation that restricted personal-religious belief exemptions. Exemptions have decreased nearly 20 percent, from 3.15 percent of children in the 2013-2014 school year to 2.54 percent in 2014-2015. No other state in our country has stripped away all choice, and there will be no exempt children in private schools or in home-schooling. The right to choose an alternate vaccine schedule or opt out of any vaccines will be eliminated. Government and medicine don't and suddenly, it was anti-vaxxers vs.

pro-vaxxers. You had Megan Kelly, Anderson Cooper, and even Whoopi Goldberg screaming, Get your shot! I was shocked. I was vaccinated (including adult boosters) and had been vaccinating my child while never much caring to know anyone else's vaccination status. Now, suddenly in California, we have Sen. Richard Pan, a pediatrician elected to represent Sacramento, Sen.

Ben Allen, formerly of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, and Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalaz, who represents San Diego, taking away the personal belief exemption (including religious beliefs) for vaccines. Suddenly, the government wants to start mandating vaccines? This has me perplexed. Why should the government have anything to do with any medical choices I make for I am writing this letter because I am upset and saddened by the division of people in our country at this current time. Our mainstream media, owned by six corporations, is doing nothing but dividing us: by race, gender, socioeconomic status, religion, war, politics, and the new one-vaccine status. I have never been a political person at all, or much of a news-watcher, either.

What I have been is an elementary public school teacher for a decade and half and a mom. Last year mainstream media went from racial division and discussion of police brutality to Disneyland and the measles. It reported a measles epidem ic, Clarita families like us who are using the plan and working hard every day to save for their kids' higher education in the most financially efficient way. Now, I don't pretend to understand vhat goes on in the West Wing, but it is concerning when no one in the administration who reviewed the State of the Union speech had any idea how it would be received. Immediately, members of both parties called on Obama to drop this idea.

Thankfully, Republicans control Congress and made it clear that they would not let such a proposal see the light of day. Within a week, the change to the 529 plans was taken off the table, but the idea of "free community college" remains. This should be something we all watch closely, as it is still not clear where the president plans to get the funding. Obviously, Obama must believe that while taxing the 529s is not good politics, the administration feels the idea of free community college is a good election issue for 2016. However, a recent Quin-nipiac poll in several swing states seems to contradict that view.

Taken over several days in February in three states won by Obama in 2012, the poll found that Iowa vot- You can always count on the mainstream media to distort the reality. President Obama is worth millions, thanks to his book sales, and stands to make millions more when he leaves office in 2017. mix! Rachel Clark Saugus Email to: letterssignalscv.com Fax to: 661-255-9689 Mail to: Letters to the Editor, The Signal, 24000 Creekside Road, Santa Clarita, CA 91355 Include your name, address and phone number Anonymous letters are not pi mted Keep it less than 300 words Candidate endorsement letters are $0.10 per word Five hundred thousand dollars! Are you kidding When I heard the price from our financial adviser I tried to stay calm, but my heart started to beat a little faster and I could feel my body temperature rise. You see, $500,000 is not the cost of a new house, but the amount it would take to put all three of our kids through college (my oldest is 11). Oh yeah, and that was only if we had one attend a UC school and the other two at CSUs.

Private schools? Forget about it I didn't even ask. Walking back to the car, my wife, Lena, and I immediately started doing the math, and it didn't take long to realize the chances of saving a half a million dollars over the next decade was simply not going to happen short of a winning Pow-erball ticket (which as of the time of this writing hasn't happened). Like many parents, we started saving for college when our kids were born, but also like many of our friends, we haven't always been able to fully fund those accounts. We do what we can, but we know that it will not be enough. Here in California, it is even more difficult considering we have among the highest state income, fuel, and sales taxes in the nation.

But one tax-saving tool we are utilizing is the 529 program. To best define what a 529 is and how it works, I pulled the following summary from Americans for Tax Reform: Under current law, 529 plans work like Roth IRAs: you put money in, and the money grows tax-free for college. Distributions are tax-free provided they are to pay for college. Prior to 2001 the growth of a 529 plan was not tax-free. Instead, earnings were taxed as they were withdrawn, even if the money was used to pay for college.

Eliminating the tax on 529-plan withdrawals for education costs was passed by President George W. Bush and a Republican Congress during his first year of office. So it was with much interest Lena and I listened to the State of the Union when the president proposed two "free" years of community college to "everyone who's willing to work for it." A plan lke that sounds great, especially in a community like Santa Clarita where we have one of the most elite community colleges in California College of the Canyons. Run by a tremendous chancellor and Board of Trustees, with a committed faculty (disclaimer: Lena is a professor at the school), COC affords its students the opportunity to receive the highest level of education at a cost affordable to most of its students. But of course we all know "free" isn't really "free." In this instance, Obama's definition of "free" was initially a plan to roll back the 529 tax break and eliminate one of the few benefits all Americans can take advantage of.

As we filed our taxes this month, I was reminded of how few tax benefits are afforded to most Americans, especially the many Santa The end of the Civil War Danny TYREE vicarious combat fatigue will 'welcome the change, but others will suffer withdrawal. was nice to hear about a few 'campaigns' that the Koch Brothers didn't have any money Civil War re-enactors will find slimmer pickings, but the more dedicated ones will still pour their hearts into their hobby. Maybe drifting public attention will at least weed out some of the ones who didn't really belong. I mean, if you think "secession" was how your new niece entered the world, you probably shouldn't be a Civil.War reenactor. In a perfect world, interest in the Civil War would now segue smoothly into widespread acknowledgment of the sesquicentennial of various Reconstruction milestones; but I don't see that happening.

It's a shame. Reconstruction lasted 12 years, cost millions and produced uneven results. me about it," lamented one aging actress.) Go out and celebrate heroism and peace on April 9. But be careful about handing over your keys to a valet parking attendant. It could be a trick! South did it again! 2015 Danny Tyree.

"Tyree's Tyrades" is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate. Tyree welcomes email responses at tyreetyrades, aol.com and visits to his Fa-cebook fan page "Tyree's Tyrades. When we were teenagers, my "the South's gonna do it again" younger brother bought into some weird conspiracy theory that Gen. Robert E.

Lee didn't really surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. Lee supposedly thought he was merely handing his sword over to someone for cleaning. (The deniers who concocted the theory apparently also believed that Europeans never really landed in the New World but just filmed it out in the desert somewhere.) I rush to get this into print because April 9 marks the 150th anniversary of Lee's surrender, which for all intents and purposes ended the American Civil War. One must be careful to specify 'Hhe American Civil War," because civil wars remain a dime a dozen around the globe. Thank goodness we'll never see another "brother against brother" conflict in this country.

No, it would be "brother against sister trapped in a brother's body" or "blue against gray trapped in a turquoise uniform" or. Ahem Well, at least there's no more chance of a full-blown War Between the States, with all its sacrifices and upheavals. Or is there? We'll wear rags on our feet and eat rat-on-a-stick! Just please ignore our neighbors and give our state that professional sports The string of 150-year milestones over the past four years has given teachers an opportunity to excite students about history. Many young scholars have had a lot to learn. marching song 'Eatin' Goober Peas' it goes all the way back to Hootie and the Blow-fish, doesn't Yes, students have learned to pay rapt attention to descriptions of the horrors of war.

yeah amputated legs, shrapnel in the eyes we want to hear about the coping mechanisms of the poor soldiers who had their texting thumbs People from all parts of the country have been interested in the Civil War ses-quicentennial, but Southerners have probably been more passionate. A disturbing number of Yankees just can't fathom lingering southern pride and animosity. can't they just get over it? Hey, is that Benny Dinglewicz coming out in his front yard? That scratched my snowplow back in '93. He's dead to me, I tell you After sesquicentennial festivities die down, we'll hear less and less about regiments, blockades, ironclads, raids, massacres, charges, campaigns and the like. People suffering from ers disapproved of the plan for "free" community college 55-40; in Virginia the disapproval rate was 51-45; and in Colorado voters still opposed but were within the margin of error (49-46).

It will be interesting to watch how the polls on this issue drive the president's next move. A headline in last month's Los Angeles Times stated: "For Obama, the cost of tuition hits home again," highlighting the fact that his daughter Malia is touring. universities across the county. You can always count on the mainstream media to distort the reality. President Obama is worth millions, thanks to his book sales, and stands to make millions more when he leaves office in 2017.

His daughters will undoubtedly have the opportunity to attend any university they wish and leave school debt-free a fate we can only hope to provide our own kids. Cameron Smyth is a former Republican assemblyman who represented the Santa Clarita Valley. He lives in Newhall with his wife, Lena, and their three children..