Or, "they" could tax endowments or capital gains from endowments, of all non-profits over X value. A billion or whatever. But are you going to tax the endowment of The Carnegie Trust or the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but not the endowment of Harvard? Our whole tax and education system is incredibly complex and brittle and a LOT of economic activity is tied up with the status quo. Changing *anything* will upset a lot of people and institutions and cost them a lot of money. "Business decisions" are made based on the status quo. It all needs to be blown up and recreated.