BUCHAREST, Romania - There's more bad news in the cards for Romania's beleaguered witches.
A month after Romanian authorities began taxing them for their trade, the country's soothsayers and fortune tellers are cursing a new bill that threatens fines or even prison if their predictions don't come true.
Superstition is a serious matter in the land of Dracula, and officials have turned to witches to help the recession-hit country collect more money and crack down on tax evasion.
Witches argue they shouldn't be blamed for the failure of their tools. "They can't condemn witches, they should condemn the cards," Queen Witch Bratara Buzea told The Associated Press by telephone.
Critics say the proposal is a ruse to deflect public attention from the country's many problems. In 2009, Romania needed a $27.31 billion International Monetary Fund-led bailout loan to pay salaries and pensions when its economy contracted more than 7 percent. Last year, the economy shrank again. But this year a slight recovery of 1.5 percent growth is forecast.
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"The government doesn't have real solutions, so it invents problems," said Stelian Tanase, a well-known Romanian political commentator. "This is the government that this country deserves."
In January, officials changed labor laws to officially recognize the centuries-old practice of witchcraft as a taxable profession, prompting angry witches to dump poisonous mandrake into the Danube to put a hex on them.
