Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has been touting his 9-9-9 tax plan for some time now. Recently though, the scrutiny of the plan has increased, with supporters and detractors both stating their cases.

Sunday, Cain took to the airwaves to defend 9-9-9 and explain why he thinks it will benefit the American economy.

In an interview with David Gregory on Meet The Press, he acknowledged that some people would see their total taxes increase, but maintained that most people will pay less, according to the Christian Science Monitor.

Cain, who has never held elected office and is most well known as the CEO of Godfather's Pizza, has recently emerged as the leading candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. He is also a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo.

During the interview, Gregory pressed Cain on the idea that 9-9-9 would increase the sales tax people pay when it is combined with state and local sales tax. Cain rejected this notion because 9-9-9 isn't about state or local taxes, the Science Monitor reported. He insisted it was simply about changing the federal tax structure and decreasing the majority of Americans' federal taxes while not changing state taxes at all.

Your state taxes are the same. Your federal taxes, in most cases, are going to go down. [Combining the two is] muddying the water, Cain told Gregory, the Los Angeles Times reported.

If Cain were to win the nomination and subsequently defeat President Barack Obama in 2012, another major hurdle would face the 9-9-9 plan: getting it through Congress in one piece. Cain told Gregory he would gather support from the people and that Americans understand it and are going to demand it, according to the LA Times.

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