The WaPo's Jennifer Rubin got a chance to chat with Rich Lowrie (not Lowry), the architect of Herman Cain's 999 plan, yesterday. He came up during last night's debate.

Lowrie says it’s just “Washington thinking” to look at whether modest-income Americans will wind up shouldering much more of the tax burden. He repeatedly refused to say how much more of the tax burden would be borne by the poor and middle class than under the current system. But he implicitly acknowledged the problem by saying that the campaign would “fix this” with a new empowerment-zone plan that would be laid on top of the 9-9-9 plan and would presumably lower taxes in inner cities. But how fair is that to people living elsewhere? And aren’t we back to more complexity?

BY THE WAY … Lowrie isn’t an economist. He’s a “wealth management” consultant, whatever that means.