I didn’t hear any sarcasm in it, and nothing was done about it. Right?
Tom was frustrated by his fruitless efforts to rein in pork-barrel spending. It's tough even for a Tom DeLay to jerk the heads of ~240 Republican pigs out of the public trough, especially when there's another 200 rat pigs in there, too. So, no - - one lone Texas congressman (albeit, a powerful one) could not pull off that Herculean feat. And Denny Hastert (Republican Speaker of the House - - remember him?) was certainly no help, either. Utterly useless, in fact. So DeLay made his comment as a subtle (too subtle?) way of taking a sarcastic public slap at his fellow Republican piggies. Sheesh... DeLay needs a /sarc tag now?
You are right about one thing, though - - nothing was done about it.... That is, of course, until the elections of 2006 when the voters did something about it. (The joke's on them, though, because the rats are even worse than the Republicans!)
FRegards,
LH