Three presidents in the last century -- Harding, Kennedy and Reagan -- all cut taxes during recessions and produced "rapid and dramatic economic recoveries," while two, Herbert Hoover and Barack Obama, did "the opposite."

verdict: FALSE

President Barack Obama has been in office for just 10 months, but already he's being measured against his predecessors in the Oval Office. In a House floor speech on Oct. 27, 2009, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., said Obama and Herbert Hoover were ineffective at dealing with recessions.

"Three presidents within the last 100 years have responded to recessions by reducing taxes and regulations," McClintock said. "Warren Harding, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan all produced rapid and dramatic economic recoveries. We’ve had two presidents in those 100 years who reacted to recessions by doing the opposite — Herbert Hoover in the early 1930s, who radically increased taxes and spending and who imposed unprecedented burdens on trade, and the other is Barack Obama."

We contacted a host of presidential historians and economists to see whether they agreed with McClintock.

First, let's discuss where the experts generally agree that McClintock is right.

Harding, Kennedy and Reagan each acted to lower taxes, and in fact each of them staked some political capital on it. (Technically, Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, brought the tax cut to fruition after Kennedy's assassination.) Each of these presidents either inherited a recession upon entering office or saw one emerge early in their first term. Meanwhile, Hoover did indeed hike taxes and spending during his tenure, and he signed the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act of 1930, which raised tarriffs on thousands of goods to record levels.

However, scholars we spoke to saw a number of failings in McClintock's thesis.

1. McClintock's list of recessions is selective, in a way that favors Republicans. A look at the official list of recessions compiled by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that McClintock ignores a number of downturns that occurred under Republican presidents -- including Dwight Eisenhower (1953, 1957-58), Richard Nixon (1969-70, 1973-75), George H.W. Bush (1990-91) and George W. Bush (2001) -- while ignoring recoveries under Democratic president Harry Truman (1945, 1949).

2. Recessions stem from a number of causes. Sometimes they are caused by factors internal to the economy (such a downturn in the business cycle) and sometimes they are prompted by an external development (such as oil shocks in the 1970s or the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks). Because these recessions have different origins, economists say, no single policy prescription works for all of them. This suggests that McClintock is oversimplifying matters.