By Matt Sutkoski

Sen. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., posted a brief video message on his Web site earlier this week inviting constituents to tell their stories of financial struggles in an economically shaky, inflationary environment.

He figured he'd get two or three dozen responses that could add insights and set the tone for a town meeting on the economy he is hosting today in Montpelier.

More than 350 people responded, and that indicates a public clamoring for someone to do something for an economically squeezed and scared middle class, Sanders said.

"It just blows me away," Sanders said, reflecting on the number of messages he received. "Vermonters are not people who like to tell the whole world their problems. It tells me that the middle class in Vermont and America say that it's really, really important that we hear what the middle class has to say."

Ann Traverso Moore of Wheelock was among those who e-mailed Sanders' office. Rising costs and a wage freeze at her job mean her family has lost its ability to stay out of debt because payments for necessities must now occasionally go on a credit card.

She sees too much attention in society toward the very wealthy at the expense of people of more modest means. "The working-class and middle-class people make such a huge contribution to society. They're able-bodied and work hard, and our society should recognize that," she said.

Today's Montpelier meeting will include Harvard Law School professor and author Elizabeth Warren. The meeting will cover topics Sanders has long discussed, such as livable wages, health care reform, lowering credit card interest rates, increasing higher education affordability and the problems associated with foreclosures and bankruptcies.

The meeting comes a day after the release of a New York Times/CBS News poll indicating 81 percent of Americans think "things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track." The poll shows the economy broadly underlies the public dissatisfaction with the state of the nation.

Count Kristin Husher, 49, of Brookfield is among those who are dissatisfied. She said she is reluctant to discuss her economic woes because she worries it sounds like whining, but she felt compelled to talk because of her belief things seemed to have changed in a generation, she said.

Husher said her father was able to raise five children, send them to college, buy a vacation home and retire at 62, all on a relatively modest middle-class wage.

"One of the great myths in our society is that we're all doing well. Really, in fact, it's taking two wage earners to have the same standard of living our parents enjoyed," Husher said. She said she doesn't know how her family will pay for the children's college education, and she is going without needed dental care so she can provide for her children's health needs.

"This nation is sort of blind to the fact every other industrialized nation on the planet has universal health care. We don't care for our own here in America," Husher said, adding she has little optimism things will change. "The policy makers aren't close to the problem. They have not spent enough time outside of their insulated, comfortable surroundings."

Shannon Rose Kilpatrick, 20, of Burlington also wrote to Sanders to say she, too, struggles. She said she's going to college full time, works 20 hours a week and is looking for a second job to make ends meet. Still, she sees the potential for prospects to improve. "If you look back at our past, with the New Deal, things turned around and I think we can get out of this one. We just have to pay more attention," she said.