Goldberg: Media ignores study refuting Obama tax mantra
Bernie Goldberg on why the media is not covering a recent Ernst & Young study on raising taxes
This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," August 6, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
Watch "The O'Reilly Factor" weeknights at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET!
BILL O'REILLY, FNC HOST: Thanks for staying with us. I'm Bill O'Reilly.
In the "Weekdays with Bernie" segment tonight, a new study out of Ernst and Young that I referenced before, which is a respected accounting firm, by the way, says that if President Obama is successful raising taxes on the affluent and on business, the country will lose hundreds of thousands of jobs. Hundreds of thousands. But you're not going to hear about that study on the network news. And that has teed off our pal, Bernie Goldberg, who joins us now from North Carolina.
Now, this is a significant study, right?
BERNIE GOLDBERG, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. I would say so. It's not a total news blackout, because The New York Times, The Washington Post, to their credit, and FOX News did cover it.
But what Ernst and Young, a respected organization, says is that, if Barack Obama gets his way and if taxes go up on the so-called rich, 710,000 jobs will be killed off.
O'REILLY: I don't know how you get it down to 710,000 jobs. But some of the stats...
GOLDBERG: They're accountants. They're accountants. That's all they do is they do numbers.
O'REILLY: But it could be 707,000. Maybe 12,000.
GOLDBERG: OK. How about "about 700,000 jobs" will be killed off?
O'REILLY: The backup is the most fascinating to me. And this is why I don't understand why CBS, NBC and ABC wouldn't cover it, because the backup is very fascinating, which is why I said to Ms. Omero (ph), who doesn't really care, with all due respect to her, about -- it's not going to. Nine hundred thousand business owners would have, under the new tax- the-rich plan, have their taxes go up, 900,000. And that's a lot of business owners right there. So they're going up.
Now, they're going to do one of two things to pay those taxes: pass the cost on to the consumer, higher prices. Or fire somebody.
GOLDBERG: Or fire somebody.
O'REILLY: Yes, they're not going to just say, "Oh, we'll take less profit, because a lot of them aren't even making a lot of profit in the recession." So that's No. 1. Go ahead. Go ahead.
GOLDBERG: I was going to say so you're raising a question here, Bill. And that is so why does the media ignore something like this?
Look, one possibility -- and I know my conservative friends are going to call me naive for saying it's only a possibility -- is that the so- called mainstream media, the networks, don't want to report stuff if they can avoid it, that hurts their guy. And Barack Obama is their guy.
O'REILLY: I think that's absolutely true, though. True?
GOLDBERG: I think -- I think it's a distinct possibility. But I think...
O'REILLY: I think it's true.
GOLDBERG: Let's -- let's just be -- let's give them more benign interpretation. Let's say they didn't do it. because it's not a government report, so therefore, it's not on their radar screen. Let's just say.
I have a solution, by the way, that you'll say, "Yes, when pigs fly." But a solution that would fix this, no matter what the cause is. And that is an affirmative action program for the smallest minority in America's newsrooms: conservatives. Because if they had just a few conservatives in the newsroom, somebody would have said, hey, "Come on, this is newsworthy. Let's put this on the air tonight."
O'REILLY: Well, you would think that. I don't even think it has to be conservative. I think it's if you're looking out for the folks -- and this is another stat. That if President Obama gets what he wants, the tax hike on the affluent -- me and Bernie and business owners, 900,000 of them -- will go from 35 percent to 45 percent. This isn't a small tax rise, this is a 10 percenter. That's a hit right between the eyes.
GOLDBERG: No. No, Bill. Bill -- Bill, I hear this over and over and over again. It isn't 10 percent, the difference between 35 and 45. It's 10 percentage points.
O'REILLY: Yes.
GOLDBERG: The difference between 35 and 45 is 33 percent.
O'REILLY: You're correct. You are correct. Ten percentage points.
All right. Real quick, the Romney trip. Media Research Center, conservative group. You've been critical of them in the past. I think they do pretty good research. I've never had trouble with their stats.
GOLDBERG: They do excellent research. I only wish they would do it on both sides.
O'REILLY: They say 86 -- 86 percent of all the media coverage on Mitt Romney's overseas trip was negative. Eighty-six percent.
GOLDBERG: If you're wondering if I'm shocked like Captain Louis Renault, who went into the back room at Rick's Cafe in "Casablanca" when he -- and he noticed gambling going on, no, I'm not shocked. I'm not shocked at all.
O'REILLY: That's a big number, though.
GOLDBERG: It's huge. It's huge. Listen, four years ago I wrote a book called "A Slobbering Love Affair," about how the media fell in love with Barack Obama. And it included material about his foreign trip. So they drooled over him four years ago, and all they could find now are gaffes in Romney's trip.
Look, obviously, journalists are Barack Obama's most loyal base. They will not abandon him. And they've got too much invested in him.
O'REILLY: That's true.
GOLDBERG: Do I find that a problem? Obviously. Am I surprised? Not at all.
O'REILLY: That's an interesting thing. Bernie Goldberg just said journalists are President Obama's most loyal base. Very provocative statement. Very interesting statement. I think we'll pick up on that more next week.
Bernie Goldberg, everybody.
Content and Programming Copyright 2012 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2012 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox