The fee should help ensure that only higher paying jobs or truly hard to find roles would be worth paying for as well (not that this is the right option, but playing it out). You would gladly pay 100k if the role already is high paying, it will be a small fraction of the cost, you won’t do that if it’s a couple year salary. It will also help curb abuse through multiple applications. I agree hard to find jobs for highly talented people (who are paid well) should be brought in.

Well, again, I don't really care about prioritizing local hires. The 100k fee really only penalizes the company from hiring abroad.

I'd much rather push everything into the salary of the person being hired. Both because it ends up raising the median salary for local workers and because it stimulates the local economy where that person is brought in. It's also a yearly fee. I think there's value in getting a very capable person working in your company and having a high salary is one way to make such roles highly competitive. A highly capable person will ultimately make everyone they work with more capable.