President George W. Bush signed a massive year-end spending bill late Tuesday, just hours before a new fiscal year began. The “Minibus” package includes three of the twelve regular appropriations bills—Defense, Homeland Security, Military Construction/VA—for fiscal year 2009, which begins at midnight tonight, as well as a disaster aid bill.

The three appropriations bills contain 2,231 earmarks worth more than $6.6 billion. This is an 11% reduction in total cost for the same three bills in 2008.

Taxpayers for Common Sense released a complete database of earmarks: download it here.

Top Earmarkers:

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK): 238.5 million
Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS): $226.6 million
Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV): $224.9 million
Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI): $222.2 million

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA): $111.1 million
Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-FL): $99.0 million
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA): $78.2 million
Rep. David Obey (D-WI): $51.5 million