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If my company has decided to replace me with someone cheaper, and they can't get an H1B, then they'll go for someone overseas, right? At least for tech jobs, it seems likely. With the H1Bs, income taxes are paid in the US, and the consumer base grows too. I'd hate to lose my job but why shouldn't I still prefer removing the H1B cap?

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When they replace you with an H1B, then wages in America go down. I don't want that for my fellow Americans. When they outsource and the worker stays overseas, there's a lot of issues that crop up, and the company can learn to live with the time lag, potential quality or security issues, etc., or they can hire a local worker. As a citizen, my goal is to maximize my standard of living and the SOL for my fellow Americans. If that means a company has to spend more, I'm fine with that. Living is for human beings, not companies. Corporations exist to enrich people, not the other way around. Corporations have no rights we don't give them, and we can take them away at any time.

Is this maybe short-sighted? Wages for one particular role go down when the labor pool is larger, for sure. But how many new companies could exist given cheaper skilled labor, working on new products? I feel like growing the economy like this would, in the long run, be better for all workers' standard of living. This is an observation I've heard about free trade in general, not just for labor, that free trade benefits everyone but nobody in particular, and so is doomed to be unpopular.

> then they'll go for someone overseas, right?

Yea, and those people can stay living overseas.

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