It is not the recycling of telephone numbers that is the biggest cause of your telephone number being available for solicitation.  The wonderful federal agencies such as the IRS, department of education, OPM, OMB, department of health, student loans, department of energy, and others now use private companies to handle their public relations, process and collect on loans, transactions and daily business.  If you have a student loan, flood insurance, FHA or VA loan, Medicare, Medicaid, did business with the government, bid on a government job, applied for a government job, inquired about or received free government information from a federal agency, etc.,  then the private company handling the activity got your telephone number from that transaction.  These private companies sell these numbers for a pittance but its still cash to their pocket. Now you have become the property of the telemarketers.  The federals do not want to crack down on this via the DNC lists because it would increase the cost of performing their tasks and in several cases cut down on revenue since they are using the pond scum debt collectors to collect on debt due to the federal government.