We’re not going to let them go to any issue if we have a say in it. We will filibuster until we talk about the debt ceiling, until we talk about proposals, and many of us in the conservative wing are going to present our own proposal next week. And that is to raise the debt ceiling.

So Rand Paul says he's going to filibuster any and every piece of legislation that heads to the Senate floor unless and until he gets the chance to give a speech about his plan for the debt ceiling:

And just what is he planning to propose? The balanced budget amendment.

We will actually vote in favor of raising the debt ceiling next week if we can but it will be contingent upon passing a balanced budget amendment.

Notice how he goes the extra mile and says that if he gets his way on the balanced budget amendment, he'll not only drop his filibuster but he'll also actually vote to raise the debt limit.

Of course, if the balanced budget amendment were adopted, we wouldn't actually need to raise the debt limit, so in making his pledge, Rand Paul is tacitly acknowledging that the amendment won't actually get adopted. So even if he gets his way, Paul knows he still won't get what he says he wants—a balanced budget.

But Rand Paul isn't going to get his way—the balanced budget amendment isn't going to pass the Senate. And that means Rand Paul isn't going to vote to raise the debt limit. So what he's really threatening to do is to shut everything down...until he gets the opportunity to vote against raising the debt limit. And if the debt limit isn't raised...much of the government would be shut down, because we'd run out of cash.

Arguably the lamest thing about Rand Paul's threat is that it's empty. There aren't 40 Republican Senators willing to filibuster raising the debt limit—even they know it must be raised. But that isn't stopping Rand Paul from waxing poetic about filibusters. To paraphrase Barney Frank, Rand Paul is having too much fun bathing in the purity of his irrelevance to think about actually getting anything done.