DENVER — In a speech yesterday unveiling a new domestic agenda for Democrats, Senator Clinton blasted the Bush administration for abandoning America’s middle class.

“It’s the American dream, stupid,” Mrs. Clinton said, paraphrasing the mantra of her husband’s successful 1992 campaign for the presidency, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

In a 40-minute speech to a group of moderate Democrats, the Democratic Leadership Council, Mrs. Clinton laid out a series of proposals to address middle-class insecurity by expanding home ownership, requiring more businesses to offer retirement plans, and encouraging families to save.

The senator said the Republicanled federal government has allowed average incomes to fall even as productivity has increased.

“They’re not taking care of America. They’re bankrupting our country and failing to address the problems of Americans, from high gas prices to rising health care costs and college tuition bills,” Mrs. Clinton said.

“It’s time for Democrats to show how an agenda for change can turn this country around and bring the American dream back within reach,” she said.

The details of Mrs. Clinton’s program, dubbed the American Dream Initiative, were contained in a 20-page booklet drafted by DLC officials, in cooperation with the senator’s staff and other Democratic groups, such as the Center for American Progress and the New Democrat Network. The plan would promote home ownership by allowing middle-income taxpayers who do not itemize to deduct mortgage payments and by offering a refundable tax credit of $5,000 to help with a down payment.

Mrs. Clinton’s program would require all employers with more than five employees to offer a retirement plan and to enroll all employees, unless they opt out.

She also called for consolidating tax benefits for education into a $3,000 refundable credit and performance-based block grants paying states about $2,000 a student if graduation rates improve.

“A lot of Americans can’t work any harder, borrow any more, or save any less,” she said.

Mrs. Clinton repeatedly suggested that the American Dream plan she set forth could serve as an agenda for Democratic lawmakers campaigning this fall. “Every single item is something a Democratic Congress could begin putting in place in January 2007,” she said.

The New York senator scrupulously avoided any reference to the presidential race she is setting the stage for in 2008. Of course, a Democratic Congress would have little chance of implementing its agenda without a Democrat in the White House.

In her remarks, Mrs. Clinton gently invoked nostalgia for her husband’s presidency, though she did not refer to him by name. “The Democrats did it before and we can do it again,” she said.

The local officials and others in attendance gave Mrs. Clinton an enthusiastic reception. However, it was less frenzied than the one she received a year ago at a similar DLC gathering in Ohio.

Mrs. Clinton’s domestic agenda is likely to be well-received by liberal party activists, a co-director of the leftleaning Campaign for America’s Future, Robert Borosage, said.

“To the extent the DLC and Hillary talk about the basic kitchen table issues … that’s where the Democratic Party is mostly unified,” Mr. Borosage said. He noted that Mrs. Clinton steered clear of discussing the Iraq war. Support for the war is hurting some centrist Democrats facing primaries, such as Senator Lieberman of Connecticut, who got a campaign visit yesterday from Mr. Clinton.

“While Senator Clinton was doing a speech on the DLC’s American Dream, Bill Clinton was going to Connecticut to deal with the DLC’s nightmare,” Mr. Borosage said.

Republicans said Mrs. Clinton’s glum assessment of the past five years ignores the economy’s recent vigor. “Only a politician as out of touch as Hillary Clinton could attack an economy that has created 5.4 million jobs in the past three years with an unemployment rate lower than the averages of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s,” a spokesman for the Republican Party, Aaron McLear, said.

Mrs. Clinton called yesterday for Congress to return to “pay-as-you-go” rules and said she supported “specific actions” to pay for her spending proposals. However, she offered mostly vague and uncertain plans to raise $500 billion by eliminating corporate subsidies and improving tax collection.

Her plan did not describe any specific subsidies to be eliminated, but instead called for a nonpartisan commission to perform a government-wide review and recommend a list of unnecessary subsidies that Congress could approve or reject in a single up-or-down vote.

Mrs. Clinton’s calls for expanding tax breaks for education and home ownership were at odds with other views aired at the DLC conference, including a proposal for a “progressive flat tax.”

Going beyond the carefully drafted policy package, Mrs. Clinton urged that wages for government officials be linked directly to the economic success of working Americans. “No pay raise for Congress or the executive branch until the incomes of average Americans start to rise again,” she said. An aide said later that the pay restriction would apply to the president, the vice president, Cabinet members, and senior administration officials, but not rank-and-file executive branch employees.

Other contenders for the Democratic nomination in 2008 were on hand yesterday, including Senator Bayh of Indiana, Governor Richardson of New Mexico, and Governor Vilsack of Iowa.

Speaking on national security, Mr. Bayh echoed some of President Bush’s rhetoric about pre-emption and urged Democrats to speak more forcefully about spreading freedom. “This is our heritage.It’s one that we can reclaim, and if we do, it doesn’t matter what Karl Rove and his minions throw at us,” he said.

Mr. Richardson praised bloggers for their work on energy policy and secure voting technology.

Mr. Vilsack, who chairs the DLC, sought to build bridges with labor leaders and online activists, who have been sharply critical of the council. “We’re not a grassroots organization,” he said.