Ohio Governor John Kasich took a shot Tuesday at former President George W. Bush, noting Jeb’s older brother presided over the reversal of the balanced federal budgets that Kasich helped craft as then-chairman of the House Budget Committee.

“How ’bout the first term when they blew the $5 trillion surplus that we all created and spent it all away?” Kasich said on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”

The balanced budget deal reached between congressional Republicans, including Kasich, and President Bill Clinton in 1998 was the first federal budget to include a surplus since 1969.

While attacks on George W. Bush’s record from Democrats are certainly expected if Jeb Bush becomes the GOP nominee, Kasich’s broadside demonstrates that using the former Republican president as a way to get at Jeb is a tactic for GOP hopefuls as well.

Kasich said he is a Ronald Reagan conservative and vowed to overturn the bad policies of the past, including those of the last Republican president.

Kasich said he ran on the conservative policies of Reagan in 1982 and won, despite the rough election year for Republicans.

“I ran on the Reagan philosophy, and I was the only Republican to defeat an incumbent that year,” he said.

Currently running second behind Donald Trump in New Hampshire polls, Gov. Kasich has seen his star rise since his late entry into the crowded GOP field and has become a threat to former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

Kasich may be able to use criticism of the policies of Bush’s elder brother as a conduit to indirectly criticize the establishment favorite.

The Ohio governor briefly stumbled on a question about whether the Constitution directly guarantees citizenship for children born on U.S. soil to illegal immigrants.

The 2016 presidential hopeful has flip-flopped on the issue. As a member of Congress during his run for governor in 2010, Kasich supported amending the Constitution to change that guarantee. Since then, he has switched his opinion and now supports granting legal status to people who came into the United States without permission.

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Asked on “The Laura Ingraham Show” about the 300,000 children born each year to illegal immigrants, Kasich said the law guaranteed it and appeared not to be aware that some legal scholars believe the 14th Amendment was meant to apply to former slaves and does not cover illegal immigrants.

“Am I wrong on that?” Kasich asked.

But Kasich said he does not does not believe the country has a moral obligation to let in anyone who wants to come to the United States.

“I think we have rules,” he said. “I mean, we have to control the flow of people who come into our country.”