Anybody know exactly when did it all get so ugly - the hatred for government and public employees?

[Spike89]

25. "Exactly" isn't really possible

There has always been a deep anti-government aspect to the American experience. We did after all break away from England primarily because of taxation. The rugged individualist meme is even older than the republic. Virtually every "big" government effort from the early whiskey taxes, to slavery, the new deal, civil rights, until today have been met with rebellion.
Today's rancor can be easily traced back to the 60s and the civil rights movement which spawned a new generation of anti-federalists who were natural allies with the always present anti-tax types. Nixon was a big-government republican, but ironically, his disgrace helped discredit government and opened the door for the anti-government forces (Reagan) to take over.
A case can be made that LBJ may have contributed by taking a very strong mandate that government could fix almost anything. The republican party of that era was almost dead, but when the left turned on LBJ's war policies, there really wasn't any group pushing the positive aspects of the great society efforts he and Kennedy had championed.