Ventura County Supervisor Peter Foy, president of a newly formed state chapter of the taxpayer group called Americans for Prosperity, held a news conference on the steps of the state Capitol today standing beneath a giant blowup of an ATM machine.

On this one, the inititials stood not for "automated teller machine," but rather for "already taxed to the max."

Foy's group promised to take the ATM machine to 23 California cities over the next several weeks and to collect tens of thousands of signatures on petitions demanding that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers not raise taxes to close the state's $15 billion budget shortfall.

The event was upstaged later in the day when Schwarzenegger unveiled his revised budget proposal, but here's some of what Foy had to say:

"This $15 billion is not the taxpayers' fault, and we don't believe the taxpayers should be punished... Taxpayers of California believe that they pay enough. They've been taxed to the max. We're done."

Foy is emerging as a visible spokesman for fiscal conservatives in California, taking on this role and also writing an occasional column for the conservative political blog Flashreport.org. He was joined at the event by some of the state's other leading anti-tax spokesmen, including Sen. George Runner, Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines and Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association President Jon Coupal.